ADDISON, Vt. (WCAX) – Anna Willenbaker is working hard to make Better Days Ranch better.
Willenbaker started the business in 2020, which currently offers hour-long horse riding lessons.
“We’ve started a lot of lesson students from scratch that have never ridden before, and that is probably my favorite thing is get kids into riding and see the work ethic that it builds for the kids as well,” Willenbaker said.
The business really took during the pandemic.
Willenbaker went from training 15 students a week to 60, and as a result decided to lease a property with a large barn.
“A year ago, it was, it was it was clear that it was time to make the move home. We wanted to start working on something more permanent on our home property that would that would be permanent for the rest of our life,” Willenbaker said.
But moving back home meant reducing the number of horses and student, and downsizing from a covered arena to a small round pen.
The kids she teaches don’t have enough room in the pen to practice their more advanced skills and with no covered area, their training is weather dependent.
“I’d rather skip school and come here every day,” student Brianna Bessette said.
That’s why Willenbaker is working on raising the funds to build a new 50 by 100 foot covered arena.
Willenbaker and her students have been hosting Halloween trail rides to raise money for the project.
“Before I, like, rode horses, I was kind of like, I didn’t know that they were, like, so scared. I thought they were just like, big animals and they were tough, but no,” student Cassidy Rheaum said.
The hope is to start construction by the beginning of next summer, so that the ranch can become a year-round operation by the end of 2025.
“I believe that that power that the horses have, I’ve seen it with with the kids, with us, adults, with myself throughout my life, and they’re able to kind of bring a little bit of a calm sense to us all. They’re able to instill work ethic, like I said, responsibility,” Willenbaker said.
Trail rides will continue Fridays and Saturdays through the end of October.
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