Full Training - $400 a month
(does not include board)
Full training means 5 training sessions per week, with a variety of in-hand work, dressage, jumping, and free-jumping depending on the abilities of the horse and its intended purpose. Owner participation in the training process is highly encouraged, lessons on the horse in full training (under saddle or in hand) are included in the cost. We also prefer to have a three month commitment for new horses coming into the training program. This allows the horse time to adjust to the new environment as well as unlearn and learn. Exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis (i.e. horses on consignment or a horse that has previously been in training).
Board - $285 a month
(natural living conditions)
The horses are kept at Emerald Spring Equestrian Center. They live in medium sized herd groups on large patures with individual feeding stocks.
Lessons -
At Emerald Spring Equestrian Center, on a horse not in training (your own or one of ours) - $60 per session
Away - contact us for a quote.
Balimo Clinics -
Offered along the formats suggested here: Hosting a Balimo Clinic . Balimo clinics specialize in improving the rider's seat through techniques developed by Eckart Meyners.
For the horses:
A sound and sane performance horse, isn’t that what we all want? And yet so often it seems that even the best intentioned horse owners are thwarted by lameness and colic - so much so that the “frailty” of the horse is accepted as an immutable fact. Horses are fragile creatures and the slightest variation in their program can cause a torn suspensory or a long worried night of colic. Anyone seriously involved with horses should budget for
veterinary expenses, or even buy major medical insurance. Hundreds of years of tradition are complimented with the latest findings regarding the biophysical structure of the horse to carefully form a training regime that will achieve our goals but preserve the hot-house flower we have made of our horses. Despite this, injuries, both minor and career-ending, are unavoidable and to be reckoned with. Despite all this, or perhaps because.
Somewhere along the way, the true nature of the horse has been forgotten and overlooked. The horse is a herd animal, a citizen of the wide plains, meant to roam great distances every day on hard terrain, grazing on poor grass, running from predators. How is it that such a robust animal has become so fragile? Often, breeding
is blamed, but can this really be the case? “Starting with a four-toed mammal the size of a fox terrier, [the horse’s] design has been shaped by 60 million years of evolution. The one-toed modern horse (equus caballus) evolved about a million years ago. Let’s put aside the first 59 million years of development and reduce the last million to a 24-hour time scale. Within the period, modern man (homo sapiens) did not evolve until about 11:10 pm. He first domesticated the horse around 11:53 pm. . . Attempts
to improve the horse by selective breeding commenced about 17 seconds before midnight.” ( from Dr. W. Robert Cook’s article, Get A Grip, published in the Thoroughbred Times.) What of the feral horses living in the few places left for them, scattered across the globe? Why is it that they live long robust lives? It can’t only be a lack of predators. Our performance horses aren’t being chased and hunted by wolves either, and yet the spring grass can be their undoing. Maybe we need to start thinking outside
the box, literally.
Horses perform their best when their needs are met. So what does a horse really need? Movement, to start with, a herd for socialization as next. An environment that mimics the wild as closely as possible. Movement and companionship go a long way to making even the most rank and sour character agreeable and happy to see his human. The constant movement that turn-out with a small herd provides keeps the horse fit and supple, mentally relaxed and engaged. Now riding becomes just another interesting activity and not a release from a cage with its attendant explosions and tensions.
In combining the natural lifestyle with a sound training program based on time-tested classical principles, we are able to consistently turn-out horses that are sound and sane, day after day after day.
Just a few of our sound and sane horses
For the riders:
As riders, our goal is to always improve ourselves so we can improve our horses. Theory, practical exercises, and unmounted work all play a part in becoming good riders. It's also very important to help the riders on their journey to becoming better horseman, so that they walk away not just with a new exercise or movement for the day, but with more insight into the motivations and needs of their equine partners. We offer in-depth exploration of the training scale, natural horsemanship techniques, showing strategies, in-hand work, young horse training and development, free-jumping, as well as working on improving fitness, balance, and coordination. This goes for jumping as well as dressage.