Rocky Springs Ranch

Rocky Springs Ranch Rocky Springs Ranch is a special and peaceful place for all to come and enjoy horsemanship at its best and safest. Lessons for all ages from 3 to 103.
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Beginners to Advanced. Specializing in adult beginners with safety and education as our primary focus. Our farm is open for all that want to be better horseman. Whether you ride western or English, Jumpers or Dressage, we are here to help you with our Balanced Awareness teaching style. Come and see why we are different than anyplace else. Rocky Springs Ranch, 2022 lesson and service fees. Fee at

our barn
Half Hour Private Lesson $45
Hour Private Lesson $60 at our farm ---your barn $75
Semi Private Lessons are $50 each --your barn $60
Hour Small group (3 to 5 riders) $45 each -- your barn $50
Rider and / or Horse Evaluations $60 ---your barn $75
Saddle Fittings $45 at our farm $35 for each additional --- your barn is $75. For a 3D form of your horse's back $75. Dressage lessons on your horse at our barn is $75

07/04/2025
07/02/2025

My page is about the reality of horses. I started it because horses changed my life in powerful ways and made it good. For the past couple of decades, I have watched the reality of horses being replaced by fantasies that totally lack the power and good that I know horses to be.

These changes, that some people call "Disneyfacation", are insidious. They are easily exploitable for making money and for misleading people into dangerous situations. Social media influencers who monetize their channels and pages love how these romantic ideas of the horse run up their clickbait numbers by selling concepts of shoeless, saddless, bitless, bridleless, brainless to the fantasy lovers.

My work is to educate reality seekers about effective horsemanship that leads to powerfully positive experiences with horses. Therefore, I will make a suggestion. I would like people to watch Ginger Kathrens' video Cloud Stallion of the Rockies. The first episode was filmed in 2018 with others following. It can be found on YouTube and in the PBS archives.

I especially hope that young people will see it because the way that horses are presented today in films and on so much social media is a shallow facsimile of the true reality of horses. Real horses make for a real good life.

Thank you Bob for another enlightened article.
07/01/2025

Thank you Bob for another enlightened article.

Engagement is simple yet for some riders it is difficult to feel. Engagement is as simple as the difference between push and pull when moving forward. Riding up a hill is a good way to feel hind engagement IF you sit properly. A main reason riders cannot bring forth Engagement in their horse on demand is that they cannot feel the difference between the push and pull in their horse's movement.

Riding up a hill, in a correctly balanced seat encourages engagement of the horse's hind where the power is. Riders must remain balanced in a vertical, +/- 5 degrees, position because within that range they will not disturb their horse and cause it to rebalance.

I will note that some instructors tell riders to lean forward and grab mane when riding up a hill. This might be good safety advice for a rider who is so unfit as to be unable to sit correctly in a vertical balance, but it is wrong for the horse. Perching or leaning forward places the rider's weight over the shoulders and causes the horse to pull or swim forward using their front legs. I once saw a horse in a fox hunt that became stranded going up a hill as the horse stalled and began to dig a hole into the hillside with its front feet while remaining in place.

Forward engagement is push, not pull, and it is not an esoteric dressage term but rather it is the fundamentally correct power from the hind. Don't overthink it. Feel it.

Similarly, when descending a slope, we want to engage the hind to control the descent. If the horse should begin to slide on a slope, we want the hind engaged so the front feet can pick up. If a horse slides down a slope on its front feet, the feet can catch on a root or rock and cause a head over heels cartwheel down the hill.

06/25/2025

✨There’s something about the sound of quiet chewing in the stillness.
🐎The way a horse just stands there — not trying to fix you, just being with you.
✨And suddenly, the weight you’ve been carrying doesn’t feel quite so heavy.

No one asks you to explain yourself.
No one hurries you along.
You’re just allowed to be — messy, tired, joyful, anxious, human.

The barn doesn’t care if you cried on the way there.
It welcomes you anyway.
And the horses?
They listen with their whole heart.

It’s not therapy.
But it’s a kind of medicine.
The kind that reaches places words can’t always touch💕

🧡🐴

Just chilling 😎
06/23/2025

Just chilling 😎

Walk around the ponds yesterday, enjoyed the flowers.
06/23/2025

Walk around the ponds yesterday, enjoyed the flowers.

Yep that always gets you up fast
06/22/2025

Yep that always gets you up fast

Waiting on Taylor....
06/21/2025

Waiting on Taylor....

Address

116 Pinetop Road
Gore, VA
22637

Opening Hours

Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 2pm

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