Pebbles
Pebbles participated in some additional training back at Next Step Horse Resuce. Look how our shy girl has blossomed! So proud of her and of all the volunteers who have helped her to this point.
Sweet memories from an incredible season with these special friends ❤️ We’re grateful for each moment with them and all the progress they’ve each made this year. Thank you all for being on this journey with us!
The air is crisp and the seasons are changing in the mountains 🍂🏔 We love seeing different sides of the horses’ personalities coming out! 🐴 Who have you seen a personality change with now that we have colder weather?
Want to volunteer but aren't comfortable with horses quite yet? 👀 Come check out one of our Watch + Learn sessions! Lizzie and Morgan will do a run through of working with some of the horses and all you have to do is watch! 🤍 We love these classes because there's so much to be learned from observing and it's a great starting point if you don't have a background with horses. 🐴 They're also great if you're familiar with horses but not sure how we do things with these rescues. 🗓 Check out the Calendar link on our website to see when our next class is and get signed up!
Last week we expanded some of our round pens to make them more usable for training. But what do we do in the round pens?? Great question!
Round pens are a great tool to help us communicate with the horses in a way that they understand. We’re basing this training on how horses naturally interact with each other. The leader moves the other horses’ feet through body language, kicking, biting, or whatever other means necessary. We can’t compete physically with a horse in a big open space though, so we have to be smarter.
In the round pen, we have the advantage and can get the horse to work by walking, trotting, or cantering around the edge of the pen. Horses are actually pretty lazy and would rather just stand than work like that, so we reinforce behaviors we want, like spending time with us. If they don’t want to hang out, that’s fine, we won’t force them. But if they’re not standing with us then they have to work.
The horses slowly start learning that we’re really not so bad after all and that’s a foundation we can then build on. Round pens give us a safe space to introduce saddles, scary objects, and all sorts of other stimuli. The goal is always to get the horse to realize that we are their safe space and life is easy when they hang out quietly with us.
Want to see this all in action? Come to a watch and learn! Head to the volunteer calendar on our website to get signed up.
Today was a good day! 9 horses being ridden at the Ranch; all was calm, everyone, humans included, behaved well, the horses got some good exercise and the sun shone for us! Short video of Luca, Fancy and Raven with Morgan supervising from Edgar!
Today was a good day! 9 horses being ridden at the Ranch; all was calm, everyone, humans included, behaved well, the horses got some good exercise and the sun shone for us! Short video of Luca, Fancy and Raven with Morgan supervising from Edgar!
Every year we work hard to find our rescues their forever homes. They’ve been working hard too getting ready for their future family and can’t wait to meet you! Come get to know our current adoptable horses by sending us a DM or reaching out over email 🤍
Keystone Science School horse camp day 3, riding! We managed to get a short ride in for everyone before the thunder and lightning came along. Blondie was such a good girl giving her rider a great experience.
Edgar and his cart, trying out the rig in a trot! We hope to be able to offer cart rides around the property once we ensure everything is safe! Stay tuned...
We all know that Edgar is completely adorable, but he just became even better! We dug out his cart and harness, figured out how to put it together and this is the result! We still need to do some work on both the harness and the wheels but Edgar was a little superstar!
Trying the new obstacle course for the first time! Raven was a star! Many thanks again to Alpine Lumber for the gift of the lumber and to the numerous volunteers who helped to put it all together. And to Board Chair, Craig for spearheading this initiative.
One of todays' new volunteers learning how to lead 2 horses with confidence! Great work.
To sign up for classes go to www.blueriverhorsecenter.org
Coming up are a Ranch maintenance day, Advanced volunteer classes, helping at a Volunteer day, minis classes, the Golf Tournament and more!
2 of the horses (and volunteers) in action! Mandy and Fancy strutting their stuff!
Last year Tilly (the white one) was a handful, now she is a little prancing pony who seems to be having fun! She is available for adoption via our partners Next Step Horse Rescue; she is around 10, not broke to ride as yet although she has had a rider for a few seconds and last year was wearing tack. She has a way to go but is developing into a good little horse.
4 hours can transform your life. When this volunteer arrived she said she was a tad scared of horses...now look at her!
Sign up for New Volunteer Orientation at www.blueriverhorsecenter.org/calendar
Big horses and volunteers with big hearts! May 14
And we know some of these horses are too skinny, we are feeding them up!
