The Hideout’s Horse and Equestrian Culture
Our horse program at The Hideout Lodge & Guest Ranch is managed by Authentic Horsemanship & Training (AH Horsemanship).
The basics of our equestrian culture are respect, an open mind, low stress horsemanship and observation of how horses interact among themselves.
The way we handle horses is part of our overall culture of good stewardship, managing our resources efficiently and to respectfully preserve them for the future, and our 3 C Culture of Character, Conduct and Competence.
We embrace all equestrian cultures and riding styles from around the world, if they are respectful to horses and promote a positive relationship between horse and rider.
As mentioned elsewhere on our website, our horses are considered members of our team and are treated with equal respect and care.
English or Western…It is all about Riding at The Hideout Lodge & Guest Ranch.
Every season at The Hideout we strive to learn more about horses, how to handle horses, and different riding styles. We encourage our wranglers to know as much as possible about English riding as well as Western Riding, which is the style we practice at The Hideout.
Many of our guests have been schooled in the English riding tradition. The English style is the most popular riding style practiced around the world. We welcome English riders among our guests, many of whom are formally and technically better schooled than we are. All this schooling and background will come in handy when riding the wide-open ranges, desert, rocky trails and pine forests in this area of Wyoming.
The Hideout Lodge & Guest Ranch is a riding and horsemanship guest ranch
Being more of a riding destination than the typical dude or guest ranch, most of our guests come to The Hideout Guest Ranch for riding. This is not limited to experienced riders who want to spend long hours in the saddle on great horses riding in this very diverse and big country. A riding ranch also means that beginners and intermediate riders will find equally well adapted horses, trainers and wranglers to enjoy and to learn from.
A growing number of equestrian travelers who want to learn more about horses, riding and horsemanship find The Hideout an ideal place to develop knowledge about how to ride and how to relate to horses, building greater confidence throughout the week.
We also welcome a growing number of couples, friends and families with a mix of different riding levels.
The Hideout’s AH Mustangs
Our herd of 90+ horses at The Hideout consists of Quarter Horses and a growing number of well-trained mustangs adapted from a variety of BLM programs. All these mustangs were born in the wild and roamed freely before being gentled using respectful and low stress concepts.
Unique to our program is that depending on riding level and availability, you can also ride a mustang, one of the symbols of The American West. For several years, we have been training and introducing these reliable, comfortable and well-trained horses to our string of guest horses. These horses are fun, reliable, low maintenance and know how to live in a big herd of horses. Given the challenges of managing 45,000+ wild horses living on public lands we believe adopting and using wild horses helps solve this growing problem in a positive way.
Analyzing and tracing the DNA of the mustangs at The Hideout Lodge & Guest Ranch
One of our longtime regular guests, Radu Totir, who holds among other degrees a PHD in Animal Science, helped better understand the genetics and bloodlines of our mustangs. To do this we sent in tail hair from our mustangs. The analysis gives us a wealth of information on each of our mustangs. Most of them are endurance type horses with a varying mix of Spanish, draft, carriage, Arabian, Thoroughbred and other bloodlines. Peter’s mustang Django even has some Shetland pony in him. This is something our wranglers like to rub in whenever Peter talks about his horse.
“This trip was four years in the making for my best friend and me, and let me tell you, it was worth every second of the wait. The Hideout isn’t just a ranch; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience wrapped in the most breathtaking scenery Wyoming has to offer. Add to this the incredible horses and the unique culture surrounding this experience. My only challenge was that I had to add another year to enjoy The Hideout because it books up early which resulted in us waiting another year”. – Hideout Guest
Plan your Hideout stay
For more information, email info@thehideout.com or call 307-765-2080.
