Jory Hill Stables

04/26/2026

04/25/2026

Day 2 at DevonWood is in full swing
Day 1 : all 1sts and 2nds more details later

04/20/2026

👏👏This is why so many boarding barns now force the horse owners to provide their own grain and vitamins, and sometimes even alfalfa. They are feeding the cheapest hay they can get away with and unfortunately some horse owners are not savvy enough to realize how much more they end up paying.

If there’s one thing that drives us absolutely nuts as trainers… is people cutting corners on HAY. Whether it's other trainers or boarding facilities.

Yes...HAY. The literal foundation of your horse’s diet.

We see it all the time: cheap, stemmy, low-quality forage getting fed while the same horses are loaded up with $50 bags of grain, trendy supplements, and every “miracle fix” on the market.

Make it make sense.

You cannot out-supplement poor forage. You just can’t.

Forage is one of the cheapest, most accessible, and most important things you can give your horse and yet it’s the first place people try to save a buck.

Want better weight, better topline, better guts...

Start with what they eat ALL day long.

We’ll say it louder for the people in the back:

FORAGE 👏 COMES 👏 FIRST 👏

Around here it’s quality alfalfa from babies to our 28-year-old retirees. No shortcuts, no excuses, and funny enough it hasn’t failed us yet.

Stop chasing the magic fix.

Feed your horses like it actually matters.

04/10/2026

First show of the season Don’t Be a Fool at DevonWood
Jaci made her Fourth Level debut with Tracy Graham aboard and came home with a pair of 2nd place finishes 🥈We had a party to celebrate complete with cupcakes and crowns 👑
Pico won all of his classes with trainer Tracy Graham and owner Ellie Klosterman 🥇🏆
Orion and Nora Lane won all of their classes including scoring 80 in their equitation class 🥇🏆
Leo and Kaley Fought came home with a 1st 🥇and two 3rds 🥉and achieved their first ever 9!

03/13/2026

The horses live in Harney and Linn counties.

02/13/2026

We are hiring for weekday mornings, stall cleaning, feeding, turnouts and miscellaneous barn chores. 503-949-1780

02/09/2026

George is off to his new home with Julie Honig Smith! Congratulations Julie!

02/01/2026

Let’s Talk About Trainer Rides.

There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and it feels like an important conversation: Trainer rides.

Somewhere along the way, I feel like trainer rides have started to feel optional, like a luxury, or something only needed when things go really wrong. But I believe they are one of the most important parts of keeping horses happy, confident, and reliable in their jobs.

Especially the good ones! The steady school horses. The saintly kids horses. The show horses packing their riders around week after week. Those horses don’t stay that way by accident. They stay that way because someone with experience is checking in with them from the saddle.

Horses are athletes, but they’re also thinkers and feelers. Over time they develop habits, compensations, and questions, just like riders do. A horse gets a little crooked or starts dulling to the leg. They lose confidence in a certain question or quietly start carrying more than their fair share. These things can show up as the ride feeling harder, less smooth, less fun… until suddenly both horse and rider are frustrated. Or they start to voice their frustration and they get labelled as having “bad behavior”.

That’s where a trainer ride isn’t a luxury, it’s part of the care. A professional ride helps to clarify the aids, rebuild confidence on the flat and over fences, and supports them physically and mentally in the job we ask them to do. Then that carries over into the owner’s ride. And the rider gets to build their relationship on a solid, supported foundation instead of constantly trying to fix things themselves.

It’s also about fairness.

Our horses work hard. They try, they tolerate mistakes, they take care of their riders. It’s only fair that we give them rides where the aids are clear, the balance is correct, and they get help doing the job well. Those rides keep them happier in their work and help prevent the slow mental burnout we sometimes see in over-generous horses.
That’s not taking something away from the rider, it’s supporting the partnership.

When horse, rider, and trainer all play their roles, the whole system works better. Horses stay more reliable. Riders progress with less frustration. And the relationship between them gets stronger, not more strained.

At the end of the day, trainer rides aren’t about control. They’re about responsibility.



Photo Credit: Wild Griffin Photography