Susy at White Winter LLC

05/31/2026

Join us at White Winter Farm to school in our large outdoor arena, jump fun posted courses, get your horses out between or before horse shows. Sign up link in the comments, pre-registration required.

05/28/2026

🐴 We’re Hiring: Part-Time Riding Instructor 🐴
English Riding | Dressage & Jumping | White Winter Farm, Traverse City, MI
🕒 Part-Time (W-2 Employee)
📅 Flexible schedule with potential to grow into full-time
White Winter Farm is looking for a knowledgeable and enthusiastic Riding Instructor to join our growing equestrian program.
We primarily teach beginner to intermediate riders in English disciplines, focusing on dressage, jumping fundamentals, and horsemanship in a supportive, community-focused environment.
✨ You’ll be teaching:
• English riding lessons (dressage & jumping basics)
• Beginner to intermediate riders (children & adults)
• Mounted and unmounted horsemanship
• Grooming, tacking, and general horse care
🧡 Responsibilities include:
• Teaching safe, structured riding lessons
• Supporting horse care and barn education
• Assisting with camps, events, and clinics
💰 Compensation:
• Per-lesson pay (set rate)
• Extra earning opportunities through camps, clinics, and events
🎓 What we’re looking for:
• Minimum 2 years teaching or training experience
• Strong English riding background
• Comfortable working with children and adults
• Professional, reliable, and community-minded attitude
🌿 At White Winter Farm, we believe riding is about building confidence, horsemanship, and a positive connection between horse and rider.
📩 Apply via Indeed
Interviews arranged through Susy White – White Winter Farm, Traverse City, MI 49696
Position open until filled 🐎

05/24/2026

The first Stepping Stone horse show was a success! Schooling Friday, Jumping Saturday and Dressage Sunday. We are all home, unpacked, and even made it to support one of our Pony Club members at her graduation party. I’m so grateful for our amazing horses, committed families, hard working riders, excellent horse show hosts, and all the competitors and spectators that make these shows rewarding for everyone.

05/12/2026

I teach a lot of first time riders and newer students looking to really “get more into horses.” These are great pointers, because they are true. Horse sports are hard, but worth it!

As riding instructors we spend a lot of time managing the gap between what new students expect riding to be and what it actually is. Most of that gap could be narrowed significantly with one honest conversation before the first lesson ever happens. So here is everything I wish every new student and every new riding family walked in already knowing...

1. Riding is harder than it looks
This is the one that surprises people most. Watching a good rider looks effortless but it is not effortless. It is years of muscle memory, feel, balance, and body awareness built through consistent work over a long time. Your first lessons will feel awkward and uncoordinated and that is completely normal. Every rider you have ever admired felt exactly the way you feel right now when they were starting out.

2. The horse is not a bicycle
It is a living animal with its own personality, its own opinions, and its own good days and bad days. It does not always do what you ask the first time and that is not always your fault but it is always your responsibility to figure out the communication. Learning to work with a horse rather than on top of one is one of the most valuable things riding teaches and it starts from the very first lesson.

3. Progress is not linear
Some weeks you will feel like you have jumped forward three levels. Other weeks you will feel like you have forgotten everything you learned last month. Both are completely normal parts of learning to ride. The students who improve consistently are not the ones who never have bad lessons but they are the ones who show up anyway and keep working through the frustrating ones.

4. One lesson a week is a start but not a program
A single lesson per week gives you exposure to riding. Two lessons per week builds skill significantly faster. The riders who progress quickest are the ones who ride consistently and frequently enough that their muscles and nervous system have time to develop real memory around what correct feels like. If budget allows for more than one lesson per week it is worth it.

5. Your position will feel wrong before it feels right
Correct position in the saddle feels deeply unnatural to most people at first. Heels down feels like you are pushing your foot through the floor. Sitting tall feels like you are leaning back. An independent hand feels like you are doing nothing. Trust the process and trust your instructor. The things that feel strange now become automatic eventually but only if you commit to doing them correctly rather than defaulting back to what feels comfortable.

6. The time around the lesson matters as much as the lesson itself
Grooming your horse before you ride. Learning to tack up correctly. Understanding how to read your horse's body language in the cross ties. This is not the boring part before the real lesson begins. This is horsemanship and it makes you a better rider than an hour in the saddle alone ever will.

7. Bad rides happen to every rider at every level
Including the ones you look up to most. A bad lesson does not mean you are not cut out for this, it just means you are learning something hard and doing it on the back of a living animal that is also having a day. Come back next week and it will be different.
Your instructor is on your side.

8. Every correction we give is in service of your progress and your safety
We are not pointing out what is wrong to make you feel bad but we are pointing out what needs to change so you can get where you want to go faster and more safely. The students who improve fastest are the ones who hear a correction as information rather than criticism and apply it without taking it personally.

9. Riding changes you in ways you will not expect
The patience it builds, the confidence that comes from communicating with an animal ten times your size and being understood. The resilience that develops from falling short of a goal and coming back for it anyway. The community you find at the barn. None of that shows up in the first lesson or even the tenth but it will show up at one point. For most riders it becomes one of the most significant things in their life and not just what they do on Tuesday afternoons but part of who they are.

If you are a riding instructor share this with every new family who walks through your gate. If you are a new student or a parent of one - welcome. You picked something genuinely worth doing!

What do you wish someone had told you before your very first riding lesson?

05/03/2026

We had a fun impromptu Derby Party at the barn, thank you all for coming. We can’t wait to put together a planning committee for next year. My favorite part may have been watching the horses outside the window while we watched. White Winter Farm is home to six Thoroughbreds who once raced and are now enjoying second careers.

05/01/2026

Greys The Boy is a 2019, solid 17 hand all bay Thoroughbred. He is progressing nicely in his training and still available, located in Traverse City, MI.