Lesson Schedule:

Cur­rent­ly lessons are occur­ring on:

• Sun­days  — Nikky
• Mon­days  — Nikky
• Tues­days  — Nikky
• Thurs­days — Lara
• Sat­ur­days — Nikky
• This sched­ule may change to accom­mo­date increased demand for lessons. Please feel free to come view lessons when­ev­er is con­ve­nient for you. You may want to phone ahead to make sure that lessons are on the reg­u­lar sched­ule that day.

Instructors:

Lara Ulan: Lara is an Eques­tri­an Cana­da cer­ti­fied Lev­el 1 Eng­lish Coach, a Licensed Coach through Eques­tri­an Cana­da and a Learn to Ride Eval­u­a­tor up to lev­el 8. She has been teach­ing rid­ing since 1996 — bring­ing a vari­ety of horse expe­ri­ences to the are­na. Lara teach­es begin­ners through to com­pet­i­tive rid­ers, tak­ing the com­pet­i­tive rid­ers to the local shows dur­ing the sum­mer. Lara does day­time lessons dur­ing the week, the sched­ule varies.  Rid­er lev­el eval­u­a­tions can be booked by call­ing or tex­ting Lara at 780 433‑1464.

Nikky Woods: Nikky is cer­ti­fied through the Cer­ti­fied Horse­man Asso­ci­a­tion (CHA) as of end of Octo­ber 2022. She obtained Eng­lish lev­el 3, and West­ern lev­el 2. Nikky has a vari­ety of eques­tri­an expe­ri­ences, rang­ing from train­ing hors­es, show­ing her own hunter, and teach­ing lessons in a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines.  Nikky’s phone num­ber is (780) 710‑6179, e‑mail nikpwoods@gmail.com

Chris­tine Collins: Chris has been teach­ing here since we bought the place, and is well known in the area. She is an active coach and judge at many venues. Chris’ lessons are pri­mar­i­ly for rid­ers on their own hors­es, although there are a few excep­tions to this.  Lessons are arranged through Chris direct­ly. Chris can be reached through e‑mail at christine.collins@shaw.ca, and phone at (780) 915‑7333.

Cold Weather Policy:

Dur­ing the win­ter months we do have portable heat in the barn, and a warm cor­ner for rid­ers to stand under in the are­na. Even so, rid­ers must plan to catch and release hors­es in the out­door tem­per­a­tures, so dress appro­pri­ate­ly.  The view­ing room is well heat­ed and very comfortable.

All lessons are can­celled if the out­side tem­per­a­ture is ‑20 or below — we do not con­sid­er wind chill as we are pri­mar­i­ly work­ing inside. If you are not com­fort­able at a high­er tem­per­a­ture than this, just let your instruc­tor know and there is no penal­ty. Giv­ing as much warn­ing as pos­si­ble allows all instruc­tors to book their time efficiently.

Lesson Information:

PLEASE NOTE: ALL Rid­ers and board­ers are required to be mem­bers of the AEF (Alber­ta Eques­tri­an Fed­er­a­tion). This is required by our insur­ance com­pa­ny. This is an annu­al mem­ber­ship that can be pur­chased on the AEF web­site. Includ­ed in this mem­ber­ship are reduced rates for cer­tain busi­ness­es, and an insur­ance policy.

Les­son Horse Lessons are $50 each, Plus GST , per per­son. Lessons are 1 hour long, and the price will not change if there are less than 4 rid­ers in the group. Groups are nev­er more than 4 stu­dents in a group to facil­i­tate the best les­son struc­ture. Occa­sion­al­ly there will be a cou­ple of extra stu­dents dur­ing prepa­ra­tion for shows, but those lessons are rare. Les­son horse lessons range from kids (or adults) that have nev­er seen a horse before, to com­pet­i­tive rid­ers going to shows.

All rid­ers need to pur­chase their own ASTM approved rid­ing hel­met, shoes with a small heel (pad­dock shoes are best, please don’t buy the rub­ber rid­ing boots), and gloves are rec­om­mend­ed. Rid­ing pants are not required, but they are the most com­fort­able for rid­ing. Please do not wear loose or bag­gy pants – they tend to cause sad­dle sores.

Own or Leased Horse lessons are $40 each,  Plus GST, per per­son with the same details as the Les­son Horse Lessons. Groups are deter­mined by rider/horse abil­i­ties, not age. Usu­al­ly the groups end up with approx­i­mate­ly the same age as size/age and abil­i­ty tend to go together.

Lessons are one hour long, unless we are see­ing signs of fatigue from the rid­ers – push­ing past this point invites a fall. We try to watch how every­one is doing and let them choose when they feel they are at the end. When plan­ning for lessons, please come 1/2 hour before your les­son time, and plan to leave 1/2 hour after your les­son is over. This time is to get your horse ready for rid­ing, and to put them away after­wards. The barn skills are extreme­ly impor­tant, and we con­sid­er this time to be as impor­tant as the time on the hors­es back. We have excel­lent Teach­ing Assis­tant (TA’s) to ensure your child’s (and your) safe­ty in the barn. The kids are expect­ed to do as much as they are phys­i­cal­ly able them­selves, and try to put the TA’s out of a job.

We do not do lessons with kids younger than 8 years old — in our expe­ri­ence they are not ready to focus for a full hour of rid­ing, and do not have the phys­i­cal strength to cope with any­thing going wrong. In order to accom­mo­date rid­ers younger than 8 we feel that they should be in pri­vate times, and our pro­gram is just too full for this to be fea­si­ble. Hors­es are large, pow­er­ful ani­mals, and even the qui­etest les­son horse is still a horse.

Every­one is required to fill out a waiv­er, con­tact infor­ma­tion, and med­ical form before tak­ing a les­son (Pack­age).

Billing Procedures:

We are switch­ing to a pre-paid billing sys­tem start­ing with April 2024. We will send out invoic­es for April lessons in the last week of March. These will be billed as the actu­al num­ber of your les­son day in the month. Please pay for your lessons pri­or to the begin­ning of the month so we can get our instruc­tors paid on time. 

If you need to miss a les­son due to ill­ness, sched­ul­ing con­flicts, vaca­tion etc, you are wel­come to rebook the lessons affect­ed with­in the month that they were paid for. We will not car­ry missed lessons for­ward to the next month. Usu­al­ly we are able to make some­thing work so that les­son is made up.

The pre-paid les­son sys­tem will be used dur­ing the warm weath­er months (April-Nov). We real­ize that as an unheat­ed facil­i­ty we can’t expect to be rid­ing every week over the cold months. Decem­ber — March we will do an end of month invoice for what­ev­er lessons rid­ers were able to attend that month. 

Horse Shows with Lesson Students:

Our insur­ance plan does not allow us to take les­son hors­es to shows. If inter­est­ed in com­pet­ing rid­ers need to be leas­ing a horse.

Lease Program:

We do lease les­son hors­es to les­son pro­gram stu­dents. The ben­e­fit of doing this is that the rid­er and fam­i­ly get a taste of the next step in the eques­tri­an jour­ney, with­out hav­ing to pur­chase a horse and have the bills. This is a way for you to see how much time you are real­is­ti­cal­ly able to spend on the sport, try rid­ing with­out being in a les­son (this is a new expe­ri­ence for most les­son stu­dents — very dif­fer­ent when no one is telling you what to do!), and exper­i­ment with your skills. Many long term friend­ships start at the barn, and lease rides are some of the glue that binds those bonds. If you think you would like to lease  a les­son horse (or a non les­son horse) come talk to me — there are usu­al­ly sev­er­al options avail­able. Any­one leas­ing a les­son horse is expect­ed to be tak­ing one les­son a week (which is at a reduced rate), then their lease rides on top of that.

Our rates for leas­es are $200 for the intro­duc­to­ry lease, and $225 for the half lease. Please inquire direct­ly about the details of these two programs.