Stirrup Courage

28/01/2025

Riders at the end of our last week of 2024 riding lessons before winter break, playing our version of “Musical chairs (cones)” combined with discussion of their favorite parts of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with their mentors, as they marched around the circle to the “Gobble Gobble” song 🦃

26/01/2025

Snowball, the Stirrup Courage mascot cat, has discovered that the warmest place to be during the coldest weeks of winter is on the back of a horse! 🤠🐱😆 Some horses tolerate giving cat rides better than others…in the pic riding Misty, she started walking right after I took the photo; he tried to grip to hang on, Misty freaked out about what was on her back and jumped forward, and Snowball took a big tumble off her back end into the snow! However, the picture sleeping on Boomerang’s blanket (my old retired guy who came over to wait out the negative temps in the heated indoor) was taken later that same evening after his first fall off of Misty, so he has officially earned his “Getting right back on a horse after you’ve fallen off” trophy! 🏆

24/01/2025

For her last ride of 2024, Maddy got to help test out new horse donation “Dolly” during her trial period. Dolly handled allowing Maddy to get through all the steps of our banner-building exercise very well, and giving one of my more experienced young riders a chance to be one of the first to test out a new horse makes her feel empowered and important 👏

21/01/2025

More of the last rides of 2024 before winter break, playing Thanksgiving-themed “Would you Rather? to spark some fun discussion with their volunteers!

17/01/2025

The second week of November started our final week of riding classes before winter break. It was such a pleasure to have these two similar-age young teen girls learning and riding together this fall, and I can’t wait to see their progress continue when we come back in February!

10/01/2025

So many reasons to be thankful for the year we had in 2024–here are some of our Saturday reasons from this fall 🤗 If you know a child who you’d like to give a chance to join our program in 2025, now is the time to get them on the waiting list to ensure they get a spot when new student classes open up in the spring/summer sessions! Visit the child sign-up page on our website (link in comments).

06/01/2025

Snow-covered and 20 degrees in January is a great time to flash back to the last beautiful afternoon fall gave us when we were able to get these two super-excited young ladies out for a pasture trail ride in November!

20/12/2024

Coloring contest entries from Deck the Stalls narrowed down to top 4 with the most color, detail, and unique additions to the scenes! Now fans, I need your help! Comment your favorite masterpiece!

19/12/2024

Finally caught up to the last days of October 😅 Wednesday and Thursday classes doing great work remembering and putting together all the elements of their patterns!

18/12/2024

Skipping back to catch up on the patterns theme lesson week that ended our October session. Pattern manuevers included weaving, circles, groundpoles, and backing up.

14/12/2024

Here's a little peek into all the fun that we had last weekend at Deck the Stalls!!!🎄Posing with the Christmas pony, horse head ornament crafting, bouncy pony races, coloring contest, sugary hot chocolate topping creations, and great gifts taken home from the silent auction! Thanks to everyone who came out to see us, and for helping us raise over $1,800! (photo booth photography thanks to Emily G Photography, and thanks to Sue Maxymiv for snapping some action shots of the craft and games stations and the decorations). Anyone else who took photos at the event, share in the comments! :)

06/12/2024

SO MANY AMAZING DONORS have contributed to our silent auction fundraiser for Sunday’s Christmas Open House, baskets and crafts that will make great ready-made gifts for your friends and family—so here is your preview before the event! More items will be coming in, and I will keep adding as they do, as well as adding to descriptions of what is in each package. If you see something you’d like to place a bid on but can’t be there Sunday in person, comment with a bid offer to get things started, and we will update with where bidding stands when the official silent auction begins!

05/12/2024

Check out the 2024 Year-in-Review newsletter on our website!

Keep up with all the excitement! Here you can find the most current and all previous issues of our Stirrup Courage newsletters updating our supporters on the progress of the project! If you would like to be added to our email mailing list to receive newsletter updates as soon as they come out, reque...

04/12/2024

The theme for the final week of October was “Patterns.” Flowing from the Memory theme the previous week, we talked about how many horse riding disciplines require you to remember and follow a pattern of movements in a correct order. Riders drew a series of colored beanbags at random which corresponded to obstacles around the arena, then had to try to remember and follow their unique pattern, ending with the back-up obstacle each round to signal the end of that pattern.

30/11/2024

Some of our reasons to GIVE THANKS on Thursdays this fall 😊

29/11/2024

More of the faces we are most thankful for as we come to the end of another lesson season! 🤗

28/11/2024

GIVE THANKS!! 😊❤️

28/11/2024

Final Sunday afternoon rides for October were spent discussing good friendship qualities and collecting fall “leaves” with words chosen to best describe themselves as a friend 🍁 🤗