A Brand New Year

Exciting news here at Easy Riders Ranch... 

We signed a new contract with the YMCA adding 72 students for lessons this upcoming year as well as the possibility to host the horse camps for the YMCA! Business is really growing fast!

The calendar is filling up from March to November with regular scheduled lessons (26 students), 3 weeks of horse camp, on top of hourly trail rides and birthday parties. Sales were up 35% from last year and with the new YMCA contract I expect that number to go up by as much as 10%. We saw our 1,000th customer back on January 19, 2013 and added 700 more by the end of the year. That's a whole lot of horseback riding!
With the increase in lessons we have had to go to a set riding schedule to be able to accommodate everyone. I am a little conflicted because we have to combine students, whereas, we always did private individual lessons. Sometimes this helps the rider by adding a competitive edge, but other students are not so confident and may not enjoy their lesson as much. On the other hand, now we can better schedule our volunteers and have built break times in the schedule for the horses. We are looking for more volunteers to come help out this year. If you are interested in helping, or know of someone, give me a call soon.

On another note, while we are open all year, the weather has not cooperated so far this winter. December was too wet and muddy to ride and January is looking to be very cold. The down time is welcome though, horses are enjoying their time off and I can get more planning and administrative things done. Occasionally, there are nice enough days that we can get out and ride a little to stay in shape. Yesterday was one of those days :) Happy New Year! See you in the Saddle