By Jill Fennema –

Rock Ranch, located west of Hills, Minn, is a place where good horsemanship is taught, alongside other valuable life skills.

This non-profit organization was organized in 2016, by Marie and Dan LaRock. Marie had a long-time love of horses, having grown up on a farm a few miles south of where the Rock Ranch facilities and the LaRock family farm is located. When she was a young girl, she often enjoyed being able to go out riding around the family farm.

Marie has also worked in area schools as a speech pathologist and has a love for working with children.

“I had felt the calling for years,” she said. But it was not until her children were in high school that she made the decision to pursue that calling – to build a non-profit organization that could teach people how to ride horse, along with a host of other skills and perceptions that come along with spending time with intelligent animals.

Rock Ranch has three main programs that they offer. The first is called “Ride Rock Ranch” and it is one of their most used programs. It is a basic horsemanship class for students aged 6 to 17. It is properly defined as equine assisted learning and education.

Rock Ranch owns a dozen horses, but they only use about five “Big Shooters” as she calls them, for this class. Each class meets once a week for eight weeks. The horses and all the tack and riding gear necessary are provided by the ranch. Students can simply show up with a willingness to learn.

This class is divided up into skill levels, with three to four students per class period. Each rider has a volunteer that assists them with the class and each class has an instructor.

Classes are held after school during the fall, winter, and spring and morning hours during the summer. Prior to 2019, classes were held outdoors at the couple’s farm. Weather often hindered classes, so they decided to expand the business and built the indoor riding arena, which has created the opportunity to grow their services.

When the students arrive for class after school, the first thing they do is grab their helmet and meet with their volunteer and the horse they ride. They learn how to saddle and bridle the horse, and use all the tack that goes along with riding a horse. After their ride, they learn how to properly groom the horse.

In the arena, which is an 80’ x 120’ building with a soft, sand floor, the teacher gives instructions and the volunteers help the students complete the tasks. For the youngest, most inexperienced riders, the volunteer also has a rope-hold on the horse at all times. More experienced students do not require this safety measure.

The tasks that the students perform while astride their horse are aimed at helping them learn how to maneuver a horse around the arena, controlling the horse – including getting the horse to stop or go – and guide the horse through various courses.

For example, the instructor may hand out various animal cards and ask the student to bring the card to a place in the arena that has been labeled as that animal’s habitat. Another riding game involves being the “Pony Express” and bringing letters to several mailboxes placed around the arena.

The games may be simple, but they were designed to make the students think and learn, while also learning how to sit correctly on their horse and guide the horse around the arena.

Marie has actually developed a curriculum to use in the horsemanship program and she hopes to make that curriculum available to other horse riding programs.

Throughout the class period, as the students perform their various tasks, they encounter question cards. The questions – (an example of one could be “If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?”) are designed to help the volunteer engage the student in conversation. In this way, the student is not only learning horsemanship, he or she is also learning social interaction skills.

“They are always learning something,” Marie said. “They just don’t know they are learning.”

The LaRock family (front) Luke, Allie, Zach (back) Dan and Marie.

Rock Ranch located near Hills, MN.