In 2019 the cumulative recorded miles ridden by our students and participants was just over 4,000 miles. To put that in perspective, that is a distance further than from Norfolk to Oslo, Norway. Not one inch of those miles was in a sandy arena. These miles were on trails in the woods and in woods where there were no trails.
The majority of our horses were either born wild or are just a generation or two from the wild.
Our safety record is impeccable. The number of horse related injuries received by our young riders is infinitesimal. The reasons are not obvious to an untrained eye.
Our horses live in herds or bands, with the exception of most of the stallions, who have their own paddocks. They do not eat sugar and few of them eat anything but grass, forbs, and hay. This lifestyle produces content horses who do not exist at the level of constant, low level stress that do those who live in stables. Our horses live outside 24/7.
In short, allowing the horses to live as close as possible to a natural state makes them much safer to be around.
Our students learn natural horsemanship. They learn to understand horses. They learn to use their bodies to effectively communicate with horses. They learn not to fear horses. They learn to train horses.
In short, allowing the students to learn to interact with horses in a manner that is most natural to the horses makes our students much safer to be around.
I am not a hand wringing, worrier, but I believe that I would be concerned about the safety of my child if that child were in a riding program that did not teach natural horsemanship.
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