07/20/2022
Hello!
We are finally sending out a update on our summer session and riding plan for these glorious Montana summer days.
We so appreciate your support in the past and hope to partner with each of you again. Things are looking a little different for FTR these days. Our fearless leader, and PATH certified instructor, Tara Hayes, has taken a position at Firefly Ranch in Kalispell, a dream job in many ways! As she has been in the process of transitioning, the rest of the FTR team has been working with the horses, and planning and dreaming for the future. We are so very excited for Tara, but we will also miss her dearly!
We are hoping to get an idea of who would be interested in continuing to ride with us, or start. We are planning to offer a summer session in August, and we are also hoping to offer therapeutic trail rides throughout the remainder of the summer.
Our schedule is limited, we are entirely volunteer run, and hope to be able to schedule as many as we can. Please let us know as soon as you can if you are interested in a lesson slot on Monday mornings, Tuesday mornings, or if another day/time works better. We are unable to guarantee availability, but we will work to accommodate as best as we can.
Lessons are $45 for a one hour session, this includes a quick groom/tack up and riding. We are offering something new this year, therapeutic trail rides, which will be $75 for a one and a half hour trail riding experience. The hour and half also includes grooming, tacking up, a quick check in with your horse in the arena and then we will hit the trail!
A few more FTR updates. Unfortunately, for the time being, we are no longer able to accept Medicaid. Our experience has been poor working with Medicaid in Montana, we have not been reimbursed for the past two years of lessons with our Medicaid riders. In order to stay afloat, we can no longer accept Medicaid, or any other insurance, and we are sincerely sorry for this! If you, or someone you know, has experience working with Medicaid and would be willing to work on this for us, we would be happy to discuss it!
Another update, we are not currently a PATH certified program. In order to maintain this status, we have to have a PATH certified instructor, which we do not currently have. Our current instructors are exploring getting certified, but this is about a year and a half process. We will still be abiding by PATH safety recommendations and their approach to therapeutic riding, but we are not currently PATH certified.
Lastly, this spring has not been without loss for our team and board members. We lost a dear friend, board member, and FTR client parent, John Christian Conrad, April 30th. If you knew John, you knew what a kind, funny and straightforward man he was. We all loved him dearly, and he will be greatly missed!
Again, thank you so much for your patience in this transition season. We are looking forward to what the future holds for FTR!
Sincerely,
The FTR Team!
