What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm Saturday 9am - 5pm Sunday 9am - 5pm

Gifted Herd

Directions Website Contact the organization

Gifted Herd (previously Rocky Mountain Riding Therapy) is a 501(c)3 non-profit PATH Intl. member center that was established

Our mission is to assist individuals with physical, cognitive, and/or emotional challenges to reach their fullest potential through equine-assisted therapies and activities.

10/01/2026

October with the Herd 🍂🐴

The air's getting crisp, the pastures are turning gold, and October is a big month here.
October is ADHD Awareness Month and National Sensory Processing Awareness Month. Some of the people who come to the herd have brains that work a little differently. Loud, busy, and overwhelming can feel like a lot. A quiet horse who matches your breathing can feel like a whole new world. Horses don't need anyone to sit still, be quiet, or "try harder." They meet people right where they are. To learn more about our programs, visit https://buff.ly/9kgLaRs.

Whether you've been following along for years or you're just finding us, we're glad you're here. Pull up a hay bale. 🧡

photo by Parsa Mahmoudi on Unsplash

09/29/2026

Tip Tuesday 🐴🍂
If you've been following along with us this month, you've heard a lot about calm, breath, and presence. Today's tip closes the loop with something a little less talked about: routine.

Horses don't find safety in novelty — they find it in the predictable. The same gate opened the same way. The same order of grooming, every time. The same voice, the same rhythm, the same hands doing the same small things, session after session. It's not boring to them. It's proof, repeated daily, that the world is safe enough to relax into.

That's the real work of groundwork — not any single exercise, but the steadiness of showing up the same way, again and again, until a horse's nervous system stops bracing for something to go wrong.

The same is true for us, heading into fall. As schedules shift and the season changes, your nervous system is looking for the same thing a horse's is: predictable anchors. A consistent morning routine. The same walk, the same wind-down, the same small ritual before bed. It won't fix everything — but it tells your body, over and over, that it's safe to settle.

Consistency isn't glamorous. But it might be the most regulating tool there is. 🍂

photo by Moriah Wolfe on Unsplash

09/27/2026

Sunday Serenity 🕊️

Today, stillness looks a little different.

For Gold Star mothers, quiet isn't always peaceful. Sometimes it's the space where absence lives loudest — a chair that stays empty, a birthday that still comes every year, a name that doesn't get said out loud as often as it deserves to be. Grief and stillness aren't opposites. They often sit in the same room together, and today, we're not asking anyone to separate them.

If you are a Gold Star mother, we see you. Not just today, but in the ordinary Tuesdays too, when the world has moved on and you're still carrying it. Your grief is not something to move past — it's something we're willing to sit beside, for as long as you need.

For everyone else: today is a day to soften. To hold space rather than fill it. To let stillness be heavy sometimes, not just peaceful.

One small tool for the week, gentler than usual: when a wave of grief or heaviness comes — yours or someone else's — try simply naming it out loud. "This is grief. This is hard." No fixing, no rushing past it. Just letting it be known, so it doesn't have to be carried in silence.

Holding you all close today. 🕊️

09/22/2026

Tip Tuesday 🐴💛
One of the most useful tools we use in sessions isn't a horse at all — it's something you can slip in your pocket.

Sensory regulation doesn't have to be complicated. Some of the most effective tools are the smallest ones:

Weighted lap pad or lap blanket — the gentle, even pressure can help settle a nervous system before it escalates, whether that's in the car, at the table, or waiting in a lobby.

Rhythmic movement — rocking, swaying, even gently bouncing a knee. Predictable motion is regulating in a way stillness sometimes isn't.

A "reset" phrase — one simple, consistent phrase you use every time, said calmly, in the same tone. Something like "we're okay, let's reset." Over time, the phrase itself becomes a cue for the body to downshift, even before the feeling passes.

Small, portable, low-effort — that's the point. You don't need a barn full of horses to co-regulate with your kid. You just need one tool, used consistently, so their body learns what "safe" feels like again.

(Speaking of tools that help — happy National Service Dog Month to all the four-legged coworkers out there. Horses aren't the only ones doing this work. 🐾)

photo by Husam Harrasi on Unsplash

09/20/2026

Sunday Serenity 🌾🐴

Close your eyes at the barn for a second and just listen.

Hay rustling as it's pulled from the bale. Hooves crunching over gravel, unhurried. The soft huff of breath through velvet nostrils. A tail swishing, a shift of weight, a low nicker from somewhere down the aisle. None of it is loud. All of it is there, if you slow down enough to notice.

This is the whole practice this week: grounding through your senses. Not clearing your mind — just filling it with what's actually, physically around you right now. What do you hear? What do you feel under your hands, your feet? What textures are close enough to touch?

It's a tool you can take anywhere, not just the barn. Five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. It pulls you out of your head and back into your body — back into now.

The world is quietly, constantly offering itself to your senses. This week, just notice. 🌿

09/18/2026

National POW/MIA Recognition Day 🎖️

There's a particular kind of weight carried by not knowing.

Today we honor the service members who never came home — those held captive, and those still missing. We hold their names, even the ones history never recorded. And we hold their families too: the ones who raised children with an empty chair at the table, who marked birthdays and holidays around an absence with no closure, who carried uncertainty as its own kind of service.

That black-and-white flag flying today isn't just a symbol of the past. It's a promise: we don't stop looking, and we don't stop remembering.

At Gifted Herd, we see echoes of that same weight every day — the families of the veterans and first responders in our programs, carrying their own version of "not knowing" alongside the people they love. If that's you, we see it. We see you.

You are not forgotten. None of you.

photo by Peter Pryharski on Unsplash

09/15/2026

Tip Tuesday 🐴🤝

Trust isn't built with one big gesture. It's built in small, low-stakes moments — over and over again.

Here's a groundwork exercise worth trying: ask your horse for something tiny. A single step back. A slight yield of the hindquarters. The smallest shift of weight in the direction you're asking. The second you feel that try — even a fraction of one — release. Drop the pressure. Let them feel that answering you was easy, and safe, and worked.

That's it. That's the whole exercise. Small ask, big release.

It seems almost too simple, but this is how trust actually gets built — not through grand gestures, but through hundreds of small moments where someone asks a little of you and then honors the effort, even when it's imperfect.

Sound familiar? It's the same with a toddler learning to try something new. The same with a teenager testing whether it's safe to open up. The same with yourself, on the days when just getting out of bed is the small ask worth releasing pressure over.

Ask small. Release big. Watch what grows. 🌱

photo by Mr.Sulaiman on Unsplash

09/13/2026

Sunday Serenity 🌬️🐴

Stand next to a horse long enough, and you'll notice something: they breathe slower than we do.

A resting horse takes about 8-15 breaths a minute. We're often up around 12-20, and when we're anxious, even higher. So when you stand quietly beside one of the horses, breathing with her instead of at your own rushed pace, something interesting happens — your body starts to borrow her rhythm. Slower. Deeper. Steadier.

That's the whole exercise this week: find a horse (or honestly, any calm, breathing creature) and just match her breath for a minute or two. No agenda, no "fixing" — just borrowing a steadier nervous system for a little while until yours remembers how to get there on its own.

One tool to carry with you into the week, straight from the barn: box breathing. Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4. Repeat. It's the same principle — giving your body a rhythm to follow when everything else feels unsteady.

Slow is not behind. Slow is regulated. 🌿

09/11/2026

Twenty-five years ago, ordinary people ran toward danger.

Firefighters climbed stairwells they wouldn't come down. Police officers guided strangers to safety. First responders and everyday citizens gave everything, asking nothing in return. We remember the 2,977 lives lost on September 11th — and the thousands more first responders and service members who have carried the weight of that day in the years since.

Today, we hold that memory with the gratitude it deserves. And we hold it alongside deep respect for those still serving — the veterans, active-duty service members, and first responders who walk through our doors here at Gifted Herd. Your service, past and present, doesn't go unnoticed. Neither does what it's cost you.

We remember. We honor. We never forget.

photo by Willem-Jan Huisman on Unsplash

09/10/2026

World Su***de Prevention Day 💚

Some weight doesn't show up on the outside.

The veteran who still scans every room he walks into. The paramedic who hasn't slept right since a call three years ago. The spouse holding the family together while quietly falling apart herself. The weight is real, even when nobody else can see it.

At Gifted Herd, we spend our days with people carrying that kind of invisible load — and with horses who somehow know it's there before a single word is spoken. That's part of why this work matters to us. Healing doesn't always start with talking. Sometimes it starts with being near a 1,200-pound animal who isn't afraid of your silence, your shaking hands, or your bad days. Sometimes just being seen — without having to explain — is where things start to shift.

If you're carrying something heavy today, you don't have to carry it alone. And if someone you love seems to be struggling, you don't need the perfect words — you just need to show up.

The 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline is there any time, day or night. Call or text 988.

You matter. Your story isn't over. And there are people — and horses — ready to walk alongside you. 💚

***dePreventionDay

photo by Dylan Leagh on Unsplash

Address

LOOKOUT Road
Boulder, CO
80504

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm
Sunday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.giftedherd.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Gifted Herd posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Gifted Herd:

Want your organization to be the top-listed non profit organization in Boulder?