Carousel Ranch Bourbonnais Illinois

🐴 HORSE PEOPLE — LET’S SETTLE THIS.

What’s one thing you were taught about horses that you later realized was completely WRONG?

Training, feeding, riding, groundwork, behavior, tack — anything goes.

Mine: Some one once told me the best way to break a horse that’s had no handling is to take them out on trail and just ride them, I have learned in the last 30 years that’s the worst thing you could do.

I’m genuinely curious because the longer I work with horses, the more I realize that good horsemanship sometimes means being willing to throw out what you’ve always been told and actually listen to the horse in front of you.

👇 Let’s hear the unpopular opinions. Keep it respectful — but don’t be afraid to stir the pot a little. 😂🐴

CONNECTION & FEEL HORSEMANSHIP 🐴

Stop just riding your horse. Learn to read them.

Good horsemanship is more than staying in the saddle. It’s learning to recognize the smallest changes in your horse—their body language, their attention, their tension, their confidence—and knowing when to ask, when to wait, and when to change your approach.

Connection & Feel Horsemanship is individualized to you and your horse. We’ll work on the ground, under saddle, or both depending on what your horse needs that day.

Sessions may include groundwork, body language, pressure and release, timing and feel, boundaries, confidence, responsiveness, problem solving, and learning to recognize what your horse is trying to tell you.

This is not a traditional riding lesson. It’s about becoming a better horseman and building a relationship with your horse that carries over into everything you do together.

BOARDING — $600/month

ADD WEEKLY CONNECTION & FEEL HORSEMANSHIP — $240/month

That includes one private session each week, with one hour being our baseline. Horses don’t wear watches 😉, so if we’re in the middle of accomplishing something productive and need a little extra time, we’ll finish what we’re working on at no additional charge.

Board + Weekly Horsemanship: $840/month

At this time, Connection & Feel Horsemanship is available exclusively to boarding clients. I don’t currently offer traveling lessons due to time constraints.

References available.

Your horse is always communicating.
Learn how to listen. 🐴❤️

Watch the video or don’t, my thoughts on why I lunge my horses before riding.

In my mind lunging is a chat I have with my horse before we have a conversation on how the ride will go, I’m not lunging for work, I’m lunging so we can be on the same page before we ride.

For example- my husbands horse is cold backed, he needs that chat first, it’s like having coffee before work, you don’t just get out of bed and go straight to work, you have to wake up and get ready, I respect my horses enough to give them the same opportunity first.

-Melody Fritz

TikTok · Ride iQ | Horse App

🐴 ❤️ FULL CARE BOARD AVAILABLE — BOURBONNAIS, IL

$600/month

You bring the horse. You ride. We’ll handle the chores.

If you’re looking for a laid-back barn where you can come out, enjoy your horse, ride, and go home without worrying about stalls, hay, water buckets and everyday chores—we may be a good fit!

We’re a small, private 16-stall barn offering full care in Bourbonnais, Illinois.

✨ What’s included:
• Group turnout
• 24/7 access to hay while turned out
• Stalls cleaned 6 days a week
• Fresh water & clean buckets daily
• Horses fed 3x daily when kept inside due to weather
• Supplements fed at no additional charge
• Blanketing & sheets included within reason — we love your horse, but we cannot change their pajamas 10 times a day 😂
• On those miserable hot summer evenings, horses can be hosed off when coming in as long as they safely stand for bathing
• Free trailer parking

🏇 Plenty of room to ride:
• Indoor arena
• Two outdoor arenas
• Hot & cold water wash rack
• Grooming stall
• Heated tack room
• Indoor bathroom

Farrier and veterinarian services can be scheduled along with our barn appointments, or you’re welcome to arrange your own private appointments.

Owners supply their horse’s grain and supplements—we take care of feeding them.

Our horses enjoy group turnout, so we do not offer individual or specialized turnout arrangements.

🐴 Group Turnout: Group turnout is a required part of our full-care program and is not optional. Horses will be turned out regularly, weather permitting. We believe horses benefit from turnout, movement and socialization, so we do not offer 24/7 stall confinement. If you’re looking for a boarding facility where your horse remains stalled around the clock, we simply won’t be the right fit—and that’s okay! ❤️

We aren’t trying to be a fancy show barn. We want to be the kind of barn where you walk through the door, say hi to everybody, grab your horse and actually enjoy being a horse person. ❤️

No stall waiting to be cleaned. No buckets waiting to be scrubbed. No rushing through chores before you can ride.

That’s our job. Your job is to enjoy your horse. 🐴

📍 Bourbonnais, Illinois
🚗 10 minutes from Route 50
🚗 Approximately 20 minutes from the Indiana border

$600/month Full Care Board

Send us a message to come meet us, see the barn and find out if it feels like home for you and your horse. ❤️

UNPOPULAR OPINION: Horses aren’t the reason boarding barns close. People are.

Taking care of horses is the easy part.

Feed them. Water them. Clean their stalls. Keep their buckets clean. Provide a safe environment. Know enough about horses to recognize when something isn’t right.

It’s the people who make boarding horses exhausting.

Good barn owners burn out because of bad boarders.

And good boarders leave good barns because they’re tired of sharing their happy place with bad ones.

You could give a horse comfort mats, 12 inches of beautiful bedding, spotless buckets, quality hay, excellent care and a safe facility—and somewhere, somehow, a Karen will still find something wrong.

Because somewhere along the way, the barn stopped being about the horse.

It became about who has the nicest trailer.

Who bought the expensive saddle.

Who wears the right clothes.

Who paid the most for their horse.

Who rides better.

Who knows more.

Who gets special treatment.

Who can gossip the loudest.

Who can make somebody else feel the smallest.

Meanwhile, the horse doesn’t give a damn about any of it.

Your horse doesn’t care what brand your breeches are.

He doesn’t care what your saddle cost.

He doesn’t care how many ribbons are hanging in your tack room or how many followers you have on Facebook.

He cares that you showed up.

That you fed him.

That you noticed when something wasn’t right.

That your hands were kind.

That you were patient when he didn’t understand.

That you became somebody he could trust.

Imagine what boarding barns could be if everyone remembered that.

Clean up after yourself.

Pick up your horse’s manure.

Turn the damn lights off.

Respect the property someone else works every day to maintain.

Help the boarder struggling to load her horse instead of recording her.

Compliment somebody’s progress instead of tearing apart their riding.

Share what you know without needing to prove you’re the smartest person in the barn.

Stop treating every reminder from a barn owner like a personal attack.

Stop bringing your drama through the barn doors.

And barn owners? We aren’t exempt either.

Communicate. Be transparent. Be fair. Admit when you’re wrong. Treat the $500 horse with exactly as much compassion as the $50,000 one.

Nobody needs to win the authority game.

Barn owners and boarders are supposed to be on the same damn team because we’re all supposed to be there for the same reason:

THE HORSE.

Difficult boarders will bounce from barn to barn, leaving destruction and bad reviews behind them, convinced somehow that every single barn owner they’ve encountered was the problem.

Eventually good barn owners get tired.

They stop boarding.

They sell their properties.

And another good barn disappears.

Then everyone asks:

“Why aren’t there any good boarding barns anymore?”

Maybe the horse industry doesn’t need another expensive supplement, prettier tack, fancier facilities or another social-media expert.

Maybe what it desperately needs is something much simpler.

Horsemanship.

Western. English. Dressage. Jumping. Barrel racing. Rodeo. Trail riding. Backyard horses.

Who cares?

Before the disciplines, the ribbons, the brands, the money and the egos, somewhere along the way we fell in love with a horse.

And that horse has been standing there this entire time, trying to teach us patience, responsibility, humility, forgiveness and respect.

Maybe we should start listening again.

Bring horsemanship back.

Leave your ego at the gate.

Clean up your s**t.

Help the person beside you.

Take care of your horse.

And enjoy the damn ride. ❤️🐴

If you’ve ever watched a good barn owner burn out—or watched barn drama destroy a place that used to feel like home—share this. The horse industry needs this conversation.

Photo is my daughter and her horse Blue, she wrote the poem in the photo about who he is to her, in the poem she refers to Blues Dam, Galleta, we still own her, she was my daughters childhood horse. ❤️ this is what this industry should be about, the love of your horse. 🖤

Poem written by my daughter, Alexyss. © 2026 Alexyss Anderson. All rights reserved. Shared with her permission. Please do not copy or reproduce without permission.

https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2024/04/17/dear-barn-owners-of-my-past/

Dear Barn Owners of My Past - The Plaid Horse Magazine BY Jamie Sindell Now that I finally own my own barn after years of boarding, there’s SO much I didn’t realize as a boarder that I TOTALLY get now…. Dear Barn Owners of My Past: I would sincerely like to apologize for believing it was appropriate to grab hay whenever I wanted. I had to […]

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❌ CarouselRanchHorses ❌ on TikTok 1326 Followers, 931 Following, 22.6k Likes - Watch awesome short videos created by ❌ CarouselRanchHorses ❌

Why you always pull back… Giving a routine spring vaccine, in the triangle normal placement and I’ve given a ton of shots, this was on a 2 year old, he jumped a tiny bit, I pulled back saw blood immediately pulled out the vaccine and threw away, ordered another, it’s not worth the risk, I’m sure some would say just give it anyway, well I won’t, the needle and vaccine has been contaminated, done deal in my book. $35 gone but the horse is standing and healthy always pull back before injecting!

This right here… is what most people don’t see. A trailer full of hay. Around $600 worth of hay. And the fuel it takes to get it here. It lasts this farm maybe two weeks.

Horse ownership isn’t just lessons and riding time. It’s feed. Hay. Bedding. Labor. Land. Maintenance. Fuel. Vet bills.

And right now, all of it is going up.

We’re in a drought. Which means grass isn’t keeping up. Hay is being fed later in the season than usual. For those who have to ship hay in, fuel costs have also doubled, only adding to the rising costs of this industry.

Hay prices are rising. Delivery costs are rising. Everything it takes to care for these horses is climbing right along with it.

This isn’t a complaint. It’s just the reality of what goes into doing this the right way.

Because cutting corners isn’t an option when you are dealing with living beings.

The horses still get fed. They still get quality care. They still come first. Always.

Next you cut that check for lessons, training, board, and think, "man that's alot of money"... think about this hay. Think about the feed bills when feed is averaging $30 a bag right now. Think about supplements, vet bills, etc. Think about the time it takes to care for those horses daily, and the potential labor costs involved in that. I don't know anyone in this industry who truly charges enough.

🌿 Golden-Years Boarding – Where Retired Horses Thrive 🌿

Give your equine partner the peace, space, and hands-on attention they deserve:

✨ 24/7 turnout on roomy pastures
✨ Free-choice grass hay around the clock
✨ Quiet, low-drama herd – small, carefully matched group
✨ 12 × 12 matted stall always available for shelter, daily use, or bad weather
✨ Stalls cleaned seven days a week (no skipped weekends)
✨ Experienced, on-site caretakers who treat every senior like family

We tailor feed plans, blanketing, meds, farrier/vet scheduling and any extra TLC your retiree may need.

💲 Affordable “special-care” rate – message us for the full package & pricing, or to set up a visit. Spots are limited to keep the herd small and stress-free. Let’s make your horse’s next chapter the best one yet! 🐴💛