Blazin’ Trails is a family-friendly event for the entire community!
Riders from Prospect Riding Center will have the opportunity to get out of the arena and enjoy a beautiful trail ride. Each rider must raise $100 from sponsors in order to participate. All proceeds benefit our scholarship program.
How can YOU help?
Share a rider’s personal donation page with your friends and family.
Form a rider team and raise funds together to help your rider.
Volunteer for the event.
Join in on the fun! Bring your friends and family for this community event.
Register for the event or donate to a rider by clicking the “Donate” button below.
Pricing:
Trail Ride with a Prospect Riding Center horse – $100
Trail Ride with your own horse – $40
Entry to the event and a country lunch (no ride) – $20
We are happy to be getting back in the swing of things with our fall programs starting back up, but that also means we have more volunteer opportunities. A dedicated group of volunteers have helped us through COVID-19 by showing up, masking up, and helping us to care for the animals and the property even when we didn’t have any riders. Now as our programs are starting back up, we need your help to bolster our volunteer roster! We are looking for folks to do the following:
Rider Assistance
Horse leaders – these volunteers help guide the horse until the rider is ready and able to control the animal.
Side-walkers – these volunteers walk beside the rider to ensure their stability and balance while riding.
Barn Assistance – cleaning equipment including helmets, saddles, reigns, feed buckets, and more. This also includes cleaning and prepping the stalls and feeding the herd.
Property Maintenance
Mowing and trimming
Repairing various structures around the ranch including fencing
Painting and other small tasks
Ranch Cleanliness and Sanitation
Clean and sanitize surfaces, sweep up debris, wipe down high-touch areas
Administrative Help
Social Media – help us keep our audience informed and entertained!
Data entry, filing, other office tasks
Stay Updated!
Join our Volunteer Team group on Facebook to make sure you get the latest update on our volunteer needs!
With the 2020 Giving Challenge event wrapping up it’s important to reflect on how impactful events like this are to nonprofit organizations in our community. Particularly in times of stress and struggle it is helpful to remember that there is a community of people out there willing to offer their support. Support isn’t always about donations of money. Sometimes the most important support we get is the donation of someone’s time, expertise, energy, or just kind, encouraging words. Some of our most dedicated supporters are just those folks who tell others about the work we do. Spreading the word helps us achieve our mission as much as monetary donation does. Everyone can be the one who makes a difference. Money doesn’t have to determine the impact you can have on someone else’s life.
Prospect Riding Center is incredibly lucky to have such wonderful support from our local community. We are very happy with our results in the 2020 Giving Challenge and we will be sure to use those donations to further our mission of delivering high-quality therapeutic horseback riding and activities to children with special needs. Money should never stand in the way of a child getting the therapy that can help them grow into their full potential.
A Horse Friend for Travis For the first two months, every riding session with 11-year-old Travis would end the same way—in tears.
One of our goals is to consistently provide a nurturing environment that causes riders to leave each session feeling better than when they arrived. It appears we were failing to do that for Travis, and we could not understand what we were doing wrong. Was the saddle uncomfortable and causing Travis discomfort?
Was Travis afraid of his assigned horse, Tank, the big, brown, BLM mustang? We thought Travis and Tank had formed a bond right away. Were we wrong?
Ready for a fun lesson
Travis could not readily give us the answers we were in search of because he is nonverbal. However, Travis can, and does, communicate with his family and teacher using his laptop. Of course, the laptop did not attend the riding sessions with Travis. So, for two months, Travis would cry every time his riding session was about to end, and no one could say why for sure.
Then one day, Travis’ speech therapist decided to ask Travis about his riding sessions: “Travis, I want to hear about your horse.”
“Okay,” came Travis’s typed reply. After Travis answered questions about the horse’s name, color, and size, Travis’ teacher asked if Travis feared being up high when he rides Tank.
Ready forTreat Time! a fun lesson
“No, he’s my friend he’s nice to me.”
Further into the conversation, Travis revealed that the reason he cried when he had to tell Tank goodbye is because he felt sad. Travis didn’t want to leave his “horse friend” he wanted to stay with Tank. Travis’ teacher explained to Travis that Tank had to sleep in a barn and that staying with Tank all the time would mean sleeping in a barn too.
“Would you rather sleep in the barn or go home with mom?”
“Go home with my mom.”
It’s been more than five months since that conversation. Travis has been with Prospect Riding Center for a total of seven months, and originally had begun therapeutic lessons with his sister, in the sibling program at Prospect Riding Center. His transitions at the end of his sessions are fine now. Sometimes he is even allowed to spend more time with his horse friend Tank after the session and gives Tank treats in the barn before saying goodbye.
Just last month, Travis and his family bonded with new horse friends. The family went on an hour-long trail ride while on vacation in Vermont.
Travis & Tank on the big tire!
“We had a conversation beforehand, so Travis understood that the horse he would be riding was not Tank. It was a beautiful ride in the mountains. Travis was on lead and he did so well! He was laughing and happy the entire ride! A big thanks to Mary-Ann, Susan, Kylee and all the volunteers for helping us get to this point,” expressed Travis’ mom, Donna, with gratitude.
Prospect Riding Center provides children with special needs, like Travis, with an opportunity to make a horse friend. The enhanced self-esteem and increased social skills that develop from the unique bond between human and horse helps these children connect with their human friends and family as well!
