Saddle Sore Ranch

10/07/2025

✨ Instructor Spotlight: Meet Sedona✨

At just 17 years old, Sedona is a homeschool senior who’s been riding with us since 2021 and officially joined our team in May 2024 to begin her PATH certification journey.

Her dream? To teach riders of all ages and abilities — anywhere in the world.

Sedona’s teaching style is full of smiles, silly comments, and encouragement. She believes in teaching the person and strives to make every lesson safe, fun, and confidence-building.

Her favorite ranch moments include our end-of-year celebration, bathing week for the horses, and working with her favorite boys, Dually and Max.

When she’s not at the barn, Sedona is busy running her own creative business, dancing, road-tripping, and spending time with friends and family.

“I want my riders to know they can do hard things — both in the saddle and in life.” -Sedona 💪🐴

Fun Barn Facts:
☀️ Evening rides over morning rides
🐎 Favorite breed: Percheron
🍎 Favorite horse treat: Apples
👢 Always in cowboy boots
🎵 Barn pump-up song: Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue – Toby Keith
🐴 Dream horse name: Indiana Jones

Drop a 🐎 in the comments to help us cheer Sedona on as she works toward a PATH Intl. certification!

10/06/2025

2 shows down, 3 to go! 🐴✨ Our riders are giving it their all in the 2025 Saddle Sore Days Trail Course Challenge — all for that Champion Buckle! 🏆 We’re so proud of everyone stepping up and having fun along the way! 💛

09/20/2025

It's !

09/17/2025

There are a few challenges we often face in teaching lessons this time of year. 🌞🍂 If you live in a warm climate, you might have experienced them, too:

1️⃣ The horses are growing their fuzzy winter coats, thanks to the waning hours of daylight. But afternoon temps can still get quite hot. It’s pretty common for our September highs to hover in the mid-to-high 80s (Fahrenheit.) One memorable October, it hit 100F and our 33-year-old Cushings pony stopped sweating. 💀

(You might think the solution would be to whip out the clippers, but this has never been a decision we could make lightly: for many years, our school horses lived outside on a mountainside with BRUTAL winter winds.)

2️⃣ This is also our driest season. The “new normal” for Georgia autumn is to go many weeks, sometimes even months, without any measurable rainfall. Sand arenas can easily become deep and dusty; students working on natural grass may suddenly feel like they are riding on concrete.

3️⃣ The long drought and the changing seasons can make pasture grass inflammatory. We see WAY more horses struggling with subclinical laminitis in fall than in spring here. Add in a little inattentiveness, an early frost or some acorns and a horse can become tender-toed - or worse - in short order.

No matter how carefully we try to support the herd through seasonal changes, the fact of the matter is, there are days where lesson horses don’t feel their best. This can be true all throughout the year… and it’s the reason why it is so important that your students learn how to PIVOT!

🐢 Maybe your lesson plan involves a pattern full of canter transitions, but you turn it into a technical walk pattern with lateral movements instead.

👯 Maybe instead of jumping a course, your students ride a ground pole course in pairs.

🛢️ Maybe instead of running barrels, your students learn how to send their horse around a barrel on the ground.

Putting horse before sport often means adapting to the horse or the conditions you have that day… so be sure to teach your students how to do this gracefully. 💜

09/12/2025

09/08/2025

09/03/2025

08/31/2025

08/24/2025

Duke Update 🐾
For everyone who saw last night’s post—thank you for all the love and concern for our boy. ❤️

We’re happy to share that Duke is doing great today! His appetite never skipped a beat, he ate breakfast, has been drinking plenty of water, his vitals are good, and his behavior is totally normal. 🐶✨

We’re so grateful he bounced back quickly after the scare.