Stillpoint Farm Boarding Stable

Fenced full-sized dressage outdoor sand ring, separate one-acre grass paddock with a variety of jumps available. And to cool out there are lots of trails, long ones, short ones, hills and meadows, meandering streams and winding paths that take you away from it all.

We are a family-run operation, 12 acres and about as many horses. My husband Ed, my 30-year-old daughter Abby (who teaches dressage and general horsemanship here at the farm) and I (Alexis) share chores usually with backup from a boarder or two including our friend Mary Campbell.

Abby charges $40/hr. for lessons and $25 per training ride She has taken several horses of her own horses from novice to preliminary level in eventing, and has schooled dressage through 3rd level. She studied extensively with Adrienne Iorio (off and on over 7 years, including several stints as a working student at the Iorio's premier facility Apple Knoll Farm, Millis, MA). Among her other instructors were Becky and Jerry Schurink and Sarah Contois (dressage). She was a popular instructor at Apple Knoll 1998-2000. We are lucky to have her back in Amherst after her sojourn into acting and the music world, once again available to teach here at Stillpoint.

Getting down to brass tacks: Anticipating questions about the Do's and Don't at Stillpoint:

Even though this is generally a pretty informal barn, there are the usual common sense, safety-based basic use-your-head fundamentals, paramont among them being the Golden one of 'do unto others...'

• Wear a helmet
• No one rides w/o signing a release form (should be a blanks on door to the tack room)
  
• Pick up after yourself in the aisle.
• Introduce visitors to Ed or Abby or me so we know who's here.
  
• If you plan to come to the barn after 9 at night or before 7 in the morning give us a call or send us an email so we know who's out there and can shush the dogs with a clear conscience.
• Please be out of the barn by 10 because I like to walk around and do a night check once everybody's gone and I carn't keep my eyes open much later than that.

METHODS OF COMMUNICATION: If you have something you need to talk to me about, I prefer emails to phone calls, and phone calls to notes left on the tack room door which I might not see for a day or two--unless it's the kind of note that won't MATTER if I'm walking around in a daze and don't notice it for a day or two. I'm very easy to get hold of. I do check my emails, all of us have cell phones, and most of the time I do see the blinking light on the answering machine in the kitchen that means that someone's left a message.

ABOUT POSTING NOTES:  The more positive they are the more likely they will achieve the purpose for which they were intended. I prefer ones phrased in the round-about, benefit-of-the-doubt approach to the stark command format. It's a small barn and it has been my experience that poorly phrased notes can generate unintended negative feelings. If there's a problem, face-to-face is usually the best way to work things out. I don't mind setting up a time to talk about things over a cup of tea. 

HORSE CARE PHILOSOPHY:  The key ingredients are pretty similar to what's good for humans, or dogs for that matter: regular exercise, good nutrition, a generally predictable routine, and turnout, turnout, turnout. Horses are a lot easier to take care of when they're getting what they need. While we don't pretend that we're always perfect we do our best, and the care we give them must be pretty good because we've got a friendly, nice-looking bunch of horses, eyes bright and ears up when anybody comes to the gate. Even the ones that come in with issues generally settle in after a bit--some of them it takes about 10 minutes after getting off the trailer for them look around and give a big sigh of relief, like they're saying 'Phew!, finally some grass and some room to run!' For others past experience has taught us patience--some horses just need more time than others o adjust to new surroundings. 

TURNOUT:  Though we like to have the horses outside as much as possible, as the seasons change we of course have to adjust the amount of time they spend in the fields. In the dead of winter they might come in as early as 3:00 while in the summer when it doesn't get dark until four hours later they might stay out til 7:30 or 8:00. We also adjust the amount and frequency of hay feedings, which can be as often as 4 times a day in winter while in the summer most of the horses here spend the day on grass and there's usually still hay left in their stalls from the single feeding of hay from the night before when they're turned out in the morning.

A PERSONAL NOTE: Over the years I have developed my own perspective on the old axiom 'horses come first' (in our house growing up that meant literally that you fed the animals in the morning before you poured yourself your first cup of coffee). Now that Ed & I are in our sixties, though, I'm more inclined to say 'a horse is a horse' which doesn't mean I don't have great affection for them--well, in truth there have been a few exceptions. Then again there are some horses I still love so much that I don't let myself think of them out there in the world without a lurch in my heart. And I'm truly grateful that I've got a good partner in my mare Callie, who was worth waiting for all those years that it took her to finally grow up.

SAFETY:  Taking care of horses requires, at the minimum, stoicism seasoned with a tinge of irony--I guess a sense of humor and good luck is at the other end of that scale. It's also got to be approached as teamwork, with no one person expected to have all the answers.

These days I'm pretty down-to-earth about handling the horses under my care but I have a few lines in the sand that aren't negotiable. After a few needless batterings from horses that might have behaved differently if they'd been handled more sensibly by former boarders who shall remain nameless--unless you REALLY want to know!--I'm a lot less compromising than I used to be on safety issues and on the larger issue, of mutual respect. And just so you know, I'm not talking about mashed toes. This doesn't feel like a dangerous job until the rare occasion that it is. Last time I ended up spending a few days in the ICU was in October of 2006. I'd been on the receiving end of the hindquarters of a freight train I never saw coming. This wasn't a horse that had been abused, at least not that I know of, which you'd think would be the case for turning a horse crazy and mean. I'd cared for this horse when he was young, a wide-eyed innocent with kind eyes and a big heart before he went off into the world, coming back to Stillpoint after a 10-year hiatus when his owner joined a soon-to-be disbanded rough-board co-op. This horse had been suffocated with what his owner probably thought of as kindness, the kind of care we call being wrapped in bubblewrap, the result being that first he'd turned sour, then dangerous, then into a killer.

I'd seen warning signs but he wasn't a horse directly under my care so I'd deferred when I should have stepped in. The last time the horse saw me I didn't see him except as a blur at the edge of my vision, my feet taking me one step to the side before my brain puzzled out what was happening, one step which probably saved my life. Someone had casually tossed a pile of hay over the fence, forgetting that the horse had 'food issues'. I'd been an easy target, perhaps 20 feet away walking toward on another horse in the paddock with a halter in my hand. I do have a snippet of memory, looking up at the bellies of the two rearing up at each other over me as I woke up in time to crawl out of the way. I don't remember them smashing through a grated window on into the barn. I do remember my husband Ed carrying me into the house, asking someone which they thought would be faster, calling for an ambulance or just putting me into the car and driving me to the hospital. Next time we'll know to call 911--you don't have to wait as long in the emergency room if you're brought in on a stretcher. I had a few days in the hospital to think about the bigger picture, mortality, quality of life, balancing priorities. Bones don't heal as fast at my age as they used to when I was younger and I have a few more things I want to do before I die. And I do not want to ever again spend time hooked up to wires monitoring my lung, brain and heart. And I don't want see anyone else become the casualty of my having let things slide when I should have known better.

All of us here take a certain amount of pride in being pretty good at what we do. True, we are being paid to do a job, but we also genuinely care about the horses entrusted to us. And taking good care of the horses is also good policy for protecting the health and safety of the people here as well. Without thinking about it too much, I do what I can to avoid any more concussions, cracked ribs or marks that should be accompanied by a t-shirt that reads 'It was a horse, not my husband' if I had one. When our family was running Marketplace Cafe and something would go wrong,  we all learned to step back, take a deep breath and just get right in there and do what needs done, saying either inside our heads or, if necessary, aloud to the relevant employee, 'We can look at this as a management issue. We'll figure out how we can do better next time.'

In the long run the horses are going to be better off if we humans are around, whole in body, mind and spirit, to look after them. People have a lot of different ideas about the best way to take care of horses, and I'm willing to listen and to work with them within limits--after all, savvy horse owners are going to know their own animals better than any vet, farrier or caretaker, and I am eternally grateful for all I've learned from some wise and wonderful horse people (and some pretty smart horses) who've come my way. I'm getting better about recognizing early on when there's somebody I just can't work with--first impressions can be misleading--and taking steps to do something about it. Working with horses even without factoring in human error is risky enough. Error compounded with arrogance can be a lethal combination, a ticking time bomb primed to explode, as likely as not the victim being someone else less threatening who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Ed, the wisest of fathers, used to say to our children: "The greatest impediment to learning is thinking that you already know." There've been some people I've wished I could have said that to in reference to their poor horses, not to mention the people who've had to put up with them. I believe that people can change, and horses are sometimes pretty good teachers in cases where humans have failed. But I only have a certain amount of time and patience if it looks like improvement isn't coming any time soon. And if not, better to make mistakes with a horse than a child.

Horse owners need to care as much about us humans--themselves included--as they do about horses. Good horsemanship HAS to be a cooperative effort, meaning that I'll be watching your back as well as your horse, and I expect you to do the same for me.

A few specifics:

• BEDDING:  We bed stalls with a reasonable amount of sawdust that is changed daily--enough to make a horse clean and comfortable, ammonia kept at bay with pelleted lime added as needed. We substitude pine wood pellets when sawdust is in short supply.
• BLANKETING:  If your horse is to be blanketed in the winter, please provide us with a versatile, breathable, water-resistant blanket in good repair that's easy to get on and off. Medium weight is usually fine though you might need an additional heavy-weight blanket if your horse has just moved here from a more temperate climate or has been clipped. We like to have the option of leaving blankets on in the winter rather than having to switch to stable blankets at night, though when the temperature is fluctuating more than 20 degrees by night and by day we will adjust the blankets accordingly.

• GRAIN:  We are currently feeding the following grains: a 12-10 performance blend, a low-carb vitamin-mineral supplement (for easy-keepers) and senior extuded pellets, as well as supplemental hay stretcher pellets for an additional late night feeding during the winter. We're willing to accomodate oher grain choices provided they are available in this area. We don't mind putting an extra feed can in the grain room for you. We don't charge for adding supplements but we do like to have them bagged for us if there are more than two. There will be additional charges for horses that require extra hay (average a loosely estimated 3/4's a bale year round, more in winter, less in summer) or more than 4 (generous) quarts of grain per day.
  

• WORMING:  In response to new recommendations from one of our favorite veterinarians, Dr. Harry Werner, who cites several large-scale studies on parasite control as well as his own personal research, we are now taking a farm-wide approach to worming. Our own statistics from fecal tests of the horses here at Stillpoint were in line with published findings that 80% of horses only need twice a year worming in late fall and early spring. See the pdf fact sheet on the zimectrin website at http://www.zimecterin.com/newsroom/pdf/Eight_Facts_About_Deworming_FINAL.pdf. Only a very small percent of horses in any given herd shed 80% of eggs into the farm environment. Now that I have a digital microscope and a hand-crank centrifuge we will be running fecal tests once a month and targeting horses for individual de-worming programs. There are no additional board charges for testing and de-worming that don't involve the services of a veterinarian.
  
• WINTER BREAK: Students who plan to take their horses home for winter break will be charged the reduced rate of $150 for the month of January. All other months, Sept 1st through May 30th, are considered full-board months even if the horse arrives a week or two late in Sept., goes home for a week in the spring and/or leaves early in May. To hold a stall over the summer for the following year students pay one month's board for June, July & August ($575 Sept. 2011  through Sept. 2012).
• FEES NOT INCLUDED IN BOARD:  We charge a holding fee of $20 for vet or farrier, $10 if I'm already here and the appointment is a 15-minute trim or an easy float by the horse dentist. We also require reimbursements for rehab medical procedures should they be required. My preference is that if there are legs to be wrapped, horses on stall rest that need to be walked, or pills to grind and mix with applesauce that must be syringed down a horse's throat I would much rather boarders come treat their own horses. If that isn't possible then we can work out some kind of equitable arrangement. Of course lessons with Abby or training rides are separate arrangements. 
  
• REQUEST FOR BOARDERS TO STAY INVOLVED:  Last of all, this is only about a 12-horse boarding facility, and things go smoother (and the place is a lot livelier) if owners participate in the care and training of their own horses. In other words, I'm not a big fan of horses as lawn ornaments--for one thing, horses that are bored are usually the ones that get into themselves into trouble, and are consequently more work for us. Horses, just like people, need a job to do. And I'm saying 'job' in a very broad sense. Even just standing on the cross ties with their eyes closed while a human does a thorough job of brushing them down is good for everybody, horse, human, and for the barn community as a whole. Many find the the best way to establish the kind of routine that horses thrive on is to set up a weekly lesson program with set practice times. I know I'm the mom so my judgements are going to be subjective, but our daughter Abby is a gifted teacher, passing on knowledge she has acquired over the many years of apprenticeship under some of the best teachers in New England. Her lessons are challenging in a good way, fun and not terribly expensive ($40 for adults, $30 for juniors and children). And if there are times when you can't ride Abby's available for lunging and/or exercising horses at very reasonable rates. Also the trails around here are the some of the best in New England. Saturday and Sunday mornings there's almost always somebody to go out with for a hack. We all need attention, and as far as horses go, giving is as good as getting. And without it, well, this world's just a little bit lonelier place to live.
  

Large post-and-beam indoor with skylights, wide breeze-way doors for day-time riding, overhead lights for evenings.

Paddocks have lighting, hydrants, heated water troughs. Most horses turned out in small groups, a few individual paddocks available.