TwistedPine Farm

We have spots available in our lesson program. Students start as early as four years old and many of our riders are well into retirement age. New students are welcomed fully ‘green’ to riding or with varying degrees of horse exposure and training Our Starter Package includes 4, private lessons. Cost is $158.00 (includes HST). Contact us for more information

Happy Halloween!! PC- Ian Woodley

Thanks so much to Stephanie St Pierre and Foxcroft Equestrian for a great SOCTA outing today! Many thanks too for the wonderful coaches lunch!! High five to Millie Morrison and our dear Risque Romance 3rd in the Jr Entry CT in their debut show!

School and camp horses don't just spontaneously appear out of the ether when their riders want to climb aboard and go ride. When we moved to the campus of Stone...leigh-Prospect Hill School, in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in 1950, from Exeter, NH, the school horses arrived every September in a huge, wooden cattle truck, from summer camps on Lake Fairlee and Lake Morey in Vermont. Roland Vondell, the man who delivered them, looked exactly like a horseman was supposed to look in those days, flare breeches, brown boots, a tweed cap, and a florid red face. Their names were Billy and Blaze and Red and Sadie, and other basic camp horse names, they were probably not young, they were usually about 15.1 to 15.3, and most had probably started their lives "out west." They were all the colors of the rainbow, pintos, palominos, bay, grey, chestnut, brown, black, and some had roached manes back then. In addition to those who got dropped off in Greenfield, Mr Vondell also supplied horses to Smith College, and several other girls boarding schools farther south in Massachusetts, and in Connecticut. Pond Hill Ranch, in Castleton, Vermont (https://www.facebook.com/PondHillRanch/) is one of the places in 2019 that supplies camp and school horses to the northeast, and across the country, there must be other dealers who supply camps in other parts of America. Some of these horses work pretty much year round, the way those at Stoneleigh did, camp in the summer, a girl's school or college the rest of the year. Others get turned out in fields for the winter, where they go barefoot and eat hay that gets dropped off daily by tractors and wagons, or by 4-wheel drive pick ups, and then, when spring arrives, it's someone's job to start the legging up process before the campers arrive. They are often called "schoolies," and these are the unsung heroes of the horse business, because most riders got started on some tolerant lesson horse or pony, and went on from there--- Who remembers that first horse or pony?

Two grey horses, two different styles of riding, same rider, the second photo taken about 40 years after the first one. The first, stirrups too long, knees pin...ching, lower leg swinging back, upper body cascading forward and down, very compromised balance, not centered or secure. I was 30, and had bad basics. By 70, it was better---Don't give up on yourself!