horses Archives - Enchanted Hollow Stables

Posted on October 20, 2020October 20, 2020 by enchantedhollowstables

Get on our mailing list for riding lesson scheduling updates throughout the winter!

We have created an easy form for current (or future) riding lesson students at Enchanted Hollow Stables to fill out so that we can gather the preferred contact information for all of our riding lesson students!

This contact information will be used to contact lesson students and their families in case of scheduling changes, additional riding opportunities at the barn, and more.

*Sam and Frankie try to make the best of snowy conditions!*

Mainly, we will be using the emails gathered through this contact form in order to send out notices regarding cancelled or postponed riding lessons. As many of you know, we do not conduct riding lessons or camps when temperatures are below 20 degrees or when there are severe weather advisories. If you are not aware of our full Winter Riding Policy, please click here to view it.

Your contact information will be used for important updates or notices at the barn related to your child’s riding lessons, horse camps, riding classes, or additional riding opportunities!

Going forward, email will be our main venue for communication regarding cancellations or postponements of riding lessons – NOT text. You can still text us, but please plan on checking your email for updates on riding lesson scheduling.

*Our riders really need to bundle up in the winter time!* *For tips on dressing properly for your winter riding lessons, click here.*

All riders, regardless of regularly scheduled days, will be on the same mailing list. This means that while you may be scheduled for a Thursday lesson you may occasionally receive notices related to Tuesday lessons, and vice versa.

By filling out this form and providing your preferred email address, you agree that it is now your personal responsibility to check your email on the day of your riding lesson to confirm that no notices of cancellations or postponements have been made.

If Enchanted Hollow Stables sends out notices of cancellations and postponements and you miss the email and still show up for your lesson anyway, we are NOT obligated to provide services.

Generally, we try to provide at least 24 hour notice for all cancellations. Due to dynamic and unpredictable weather conditions in Minnesota, lessons may occasionally be cancelled with shorter notice. Please have your email notifications on or regularly check your email to be sure of any scheduling changes.

*The horses handle the cold better than we do. In fact, they usually prefer it over the extreme heat!*

The “Enchanted Hollow Stables Barn Family” Facebook Group is another great resource to stay connected!

We also post information and updates related to barn activities in our “Enchanted Hollow Stables Barn Family” Facebook group. Please still count on checking your email for all official scheduling notifications, but if you are not a member of our private Facebook group then I highly encourage you to request to join it! We will also post notices there as well as more fun and personal updates from around the barn, and it’s a great way to get connected with other families that ride at Enchanted Hollow Stables.

Click here to go to our “Enchanted Hollow Stables barn Family” Facebook group and request to join if you aren’t already a member!

Contact Information Form

Finally, the form you’ve been waiting for!

Please fill out this brief questionnaire and informational form with your preferred contact information. We also ask a couple of very brief questions about you (or your rider’s) riding preferences – such as favorite discipline, favorite lesson horse, and more. This is a good opportunity for us to check in with our riders and see how everyone is feeling about their goals and aspirations!

Posted on January 16, 2017January 16, 2017 by enchantedhollowstables

The Kiger Mustangs of Enchanted Hollow

This is the story of a mother, a daughter, and their two mustangs.

16106736_10154986454806388_952648482_o — Mary and her beautiful eight-year-old mustang, Ki, who she has owned for almost four years.

Almost four years ago, Mary and Sam went to a traveling mustang adoption. Mary adopted Ki, a dun 4-year-old Kiger mustang that was rounded up as a two year old by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from a mustang herd management area (HMA) near Steenes Mountain, Oregon. Ki has been trained to ride and Mary loves spending time with him in the arena and out on the trails. He is very easy going, and extremely smart! Despite running wild in the mountains of Oregon until he was rounded up as a two year old and then spending another two years roaming almost-wild on a BLM management facility, when we adopted him as a 4-year-old mustang he was such an easy guy to get along with. His personality is just so sweet and mellow, and the gentling process was very paimless with him. We are very thankful to have added Ki to our family — he is so very, very special and he is with our family for life. Seeing Mary gentle, domesticate, and train Ki inspired Sam to set a goal to adopt a mustang from the same area at some point in her life.

Ki looking majestically adorable on a chilly winter day.

The day that Mary adopted Ki at the traveling BLM adoption, there was a young grullo gelding from the same complex also in the pen. We almost adopted that grullo gelding, but in the end, Mary decided on taking Ki home.

About two months ago, we stumbled across a beautiful grullo gelding on Jeremy Kaiserlik‘s Minnesota TIP Mustangs page and saw that he came from the same complex and roundup year as Ki.

[su_note note_color=”#e2ca95″]The Mustang Heritage Foundation created the Trainer Incentive Program, which is better known as TIP, to bridge the gap between potential adopters and American Mustangs housed at Bureau of Land Management facilities.

TIP trainers like Jeremy select mustangs from BLM Management facilities to bring home and begin the gentling process so that they can find new homes.[/su_note]

We started doing some digging, and evidence suggests that Clark, the grullo gelding on Jeremy’s page, was at the same BLM holding facility as Ki for two years before they were separated — presumably when we adopted Ki at the traveling adoption. Using the information that we know, it isn’t very far fetched to assume that Clark was the grullo gelding we almost took home from the adoption pen that day.

16107648_10154986454821388_365333165_o — Clark trotting through the snow.

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Ki's official BLM papers with information relating to where he comes from, when he was rounded up, and his medical history from his time in holding. — Ki’s official BLM papers

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Clark's official BLM papers with information relating to where he comes from, when he was rounded up, and his medical history from his time in holding. — Clark’s official BLM papers

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If you look at Ki and Clark’s BLM paperwork side-by-side, you can see that they come from the same region, the same roundup, and the same holding facility. The evidence comes all the way down to the handwriting and the color of the pen ink in their medical histroy — it all matches up! What are the odds!?

This is Sam writing this blog post. I’m Mary’s daughter — the lucky adopter of Clark the mustang. Yes, when we found Clark on the Minnesota TIP Mustangs page and realized that he’d come from the same herd and the same roundup as Ki, and had even been in the same holding facility for quite a while, I knew that we had to add him to the family. Luckily for me, I have extremely supportive and understanding parents that encouraged me to move forward with the adoption despite the fact that we weren’t planning on adding to the herd anytime soon. I had been planning on adopting a mustang from the same region as Ki eventually, though not for a couple of years. But when Clark showed up on my Facebook feed available for adoption through Jeremy’s program, I knew that I had to bring him home.

16106350_10154986472021388_2050382020_o — Clark enjoying a gallop through the field during one of his first moments being set loose in the pasture since being adopted by Sam.

I don’t always say “meant-to-be” about situations in life, and I’m probably attaching a whole lot more meaning to this moment than I should, but I honestly feel like this big beautiful mustang and I were somehow meant to be together. Maybe it was him that I was drooling over that day almost four years ago, and he’s just been waiting for Jeremy to spot him at that holding facility in Nebraska and bring him home so I could find him. Realistically, I know that I wasn’t ready for a mustang of my own the day we adopted Ki. I sure wanted to, but I’m glad I waited. In that time I have grown so much as a rider and a trainer. I have rescued and rehabbed many horses that have taught me so much, and I’ve broken out many young horses and ponies to ride well enough that they’ve all gone on to be wonderful childrens’ mounts. I am at a point in my life that I am ready to take on the trials and challenges that a wild horse may present me with. I still have a lot to learn, but knowing that and having the experience under my belt that I didn’t have four years ago makes me feel like Clark was meant to come into my life at a time when I was really ready for him.

16010582_10154986455021388_163263195_o — Clark LOVES to nuzzle everyone!

Either way, I’m so happy. Clark is everything I’ve dreamed of. He checks every single box in my “perfect horse,” and I cannot wait for this journey that I am about to embark on with him to begin. He’s with me for life, and I can’t wait for us to get started.

I plan to blog about Clark’s progress here on our website, and I also made an Instagram account to use for documenting our adventures. Follow us: @clark_the_mustang

The beautiful photos featured in this post were taken by the very talented Morgan Chapman Media.

Posted on October 18, 2016October 19, 2016 by enchantedhollowstables

MEA Weekend Horse & Pony Day Camp

Enchanted Hollow Stables is offering a mini horse & pony camp over the MEA weekend. It is open to beginners to intermediate riders of all ages. Participants will be broken into age, size and ability groups and will have the option of working with either a miniature horse, pony or a full-size horse depending on what is appropriate and safest for them depending on their age, size and experience level so that they get the most out of their camp experience.

Each camper will be paired up, taught, guided by and mentored throughout the day by several experienced teenagers here at our barn that been riding, driving & working with ponies and horses their whole lives and have won multiple national championships in both driving & riding.

Each small group will work on age-appropriate farm chores, riding skills, games, equine nutrition and care with their mentor time during lunch break to make a fun horse-theme craft they will get to take home along with handouts about what they’ve learned during the day.

EQUINE EDUCATION: will cover equine feed and nutrition, how much hay and other types of food horses eat and need.

FARM CHORES: They will learn about about cleaning horse stalls top to bottom, re-filling water buckets, re-filling hay nets and preparing grain and supplements for each horse and pony for the next feeding.

GROOMING: They will learn to properly use each grooming tool and groom a horse top to bottom.

MASSAGE & TOUCH THERAPY: They will learn the basics of how to stretch and massage horses and create a bond and friendship with them during this process.

RIDING EDUCATION:
They will learn how to tack up those horse or pony. Learn about getting on and off your horse safely.
Asking your horse or pony to stop, go, turn and back up.
Learning an “emergency stop” and the situations that may require it.
Working on the gait transitions. Walk, trot, canter (if ready) and whoa.
Riders will get to work their horse or pony over ground poles and small jumps if they are able to do this independently. Otherwise they will be assisted and supervised by their assigned mentor on a lead line) Fun obstacles will also be set up to ride over and through in order to challenge their hand and eye coordination and bond more with their horse or pony. We will also play some team games on horse back. If everybody is doing well on there horse or pony the instructors may take them on a short trail ride though our beautiful trails and woods at the end of the day.

The ENCHANTED HOLLOW STABLES MEA HORSE CAMP is being offered Wednesday, October 19th, Thursday, October 20th & Friday October 21st. From 930AM – 230PM. (Yes it starts tomorrow)

If notified in advance we can be flexible about an earlier or later drop of and pick up of children in order to accommodate parents work schedules.

You can sign up for 1, 2 or all three days of MEA PONY CAMP.

[su_heading size=”14″]One Day: $90 Two Days: $165 Three Days: $250[/su_heading]

For safety and for being able to work one-on-one as much as possible with the kids we are limiting each day to no more than 4-5 camp participants. Please message, call or text 612-386-0279 to see what days we still have spots and instructors available and to confirm your child’s spot. You can pay via check, cash or PayPal. A barn liability waiver must also be signed prior to participation and it can be emailed to you in advance if you provide an email to us in order for you to read and sign it it in advance.

Participants should wear a sturdy boot or shoe preferably with a heel, old jeans and dressed for the weather. Layers are best. A shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie and jacket that they can take off if warm. A light-weight pair of gloves are a good idea to have along as well. If they have a riding helmet please bring it – if not we have several here. They should also pack their own lunch, water bottle and a snack.