Cedar Ridge Farm

    Hi, first of all let me introduce myself, my name is Sandy Dolan and I am the owner/operator of Cedar Ridge Farm. I have been around horses for over 40 years. Our family has experience with many different breeds of horses and many different riding disciplines, whether it be western or english. We do not strive to be all things here or to be the biggest barn in the area. We do what we feel we do best, which is to specialize in children’s riding lessons, we do give adults lessons only if space is available. We want to stay small enough to give our lesson students the attention they need to advance and become good confident riders that have a well balanced seat.  We incorporate fun riding activities that allows the kids to have fun while they use what they have learned in their lessons. We don’t just make them ride around the arena in circles. We have been involved in youth equine educational programs such as 4H and the United States Pony Clubs and have incorporated many of their successful safety and educational philosophies in our program. We use centered riding techniques that teach the children to ride with their horses and not against them. We want them to become thinking riders that understand they are on a living, breathing animal that feels pain and discomfort, therefore they need to think about how they treat the horse, are they asking him in a way to do something that is correct or are they doing it in a way that is going to cause the horse discomfort. We want them to understand the correct way will get the results they want, keeping the horse happy and cooperative. Because the horse's comfort is of the upmost importance to us we have the philosophy of less is better. What do we mean by this? We strive to use the most gentle and least harshest tack and equipment needed for our horses and our lesson students' horses. Over the 40 years I have been around horses I have seen what I like to call the copy cat syndrome. This is where inexperienced riders see other riders use stronger, harsher tack without knowing why.  Too often their horses don't need such harsh tack but they see others using it and decide well I need to use it too. We have seen the results of this many times in the show ring with poor results with the horse being very ring sour and definitely not enjoying his work. We use the gentlest bit needed for our horses to perform their jobs. We have had much success without resorting to unneccessary stronger and harsher tack. We rely on patient training rather than short cuts using devices that do not yield long term positive results. Our horses' and students' accomplishments prove this is a successful approach!

We here at Cedar Ridge Farm are not concerned about quantity, we want to pursue quality. We want our lesson students to enjoy riding and spending time with horses, and we are going to make it fun for them. We are not a show barn in the sense that we do not expect everyone to want to show a horse, we do provide an opportunity for children to participate in our fall fun show. We try very hard to keep our fees reasonable without compromising the welfare of our horses and the safety of our facility.

As you drive through the farm you will notice areas we have left alone as wildlife habitat. We have been rewarded with an abundance of wildlife. We try very hard to be environmentally friendly, we do not use chemicals unless absolutely neccesary. We like to rely on nature's pest control, we have many beneficial species who do their jobs well. We also use fly predators who attack fly larvae and eliminate them before they become pesky flies. What about all that manure? It all gets composted into organic fertilizer and used in our organic garden. God blessed us with this farm and we feel the least we can do is take care of some of his creation.

Thank you for taking the time to find out more about us.