Walking On Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2020 | Page 10

Industry Info
American Horse Council’s
Time To Ride® Program Celebrates
Successful 2019 Program Pilot
Time To Ride®, an initiative of
the American Horse Council’s Mar-
keting Alliance, concluded a very
successful pilot program in 2019
and is eagerly looking forward to
expanding in 2020.
The American Horse Council
(AHC) Marketing Alliance was
formed in 2012 by a group of
equine-related corporations and
organizations to promote horses,
horseback riding and horse owner-
ship to the general public. The mis-
sion of this industry-wide initiative
is to sustain and grow the horse
industry. The Marketing Alliance’s
initial program, Seats In Saddles,
focused on providing horses at
events for people to try horseback
riding. While widely popular at
expos and other equine venues, the
program was limited by the number
of horses available. Thus in 2014 the
Marketing Alliance modified its ap-
10 • Walking On
proach and created Time To Ride.
The Time To Ride Challenge, which
ran from 2014 – 2018, focused
on attracting people to barns in
their communities to meet horses.
This resulted in lots more people
“touching” a horse (over 130,000 in
5 years), however the industry did
not see a significant uptick in lesson
participants.
In 2019 the Marketing Alliance
decided to put a fresh spin on Time
To Ride, shifting the focus to intro-
ducing families, specifically school-
age children, to horseback riding
and horse care in a safe, welcoming
and fun environment through an
initial series of six to eight lessons
that include basic horse care as
well as riding. The lesson series are
offered at approved Time To Ride
Program Facilities through schools,
local youth organizations and rec-
reational leagues.
Equine facilities and instructors
have to meet stringent require-
ments to be designated as Time To
Ride Program Facilities, including
SafeSport training and a criminal
background check. All instruc-
tors are required to hold a current
professional membership with one
or more national breed or disci-
pline associations, be certified as
an instructor through a recognized
program such as Certified Horse-
manship Association or licensed as
a riding instructor in the state in
which they teach.
The Marketing Alliance set an
initial goal of 20 – 30 farms for the
2019 pilot program, but much to
their surprise they received over
70 applications and 100 inquiries
which resulted in a total of 62
lesson programs being accepted for
the pilot. These facilities represent-
ed 14 different breed and discipline
organizations. Surveys conduct-
ed with participants showed a
whopping 72% of facilities gained
new lessons students! The highest
number of new lesson students at a
single facility was 35. Facilities with
less than 15 lesson horses averaged
8.6 new students and those with 15
or more lesson horses averaged 9.8
new students. The number of stu-
dents achieving the learning goals
of the initial set of lessons was 94%.
“We are just blown away by the
success of this program.” said Molly
O’Brien, Time To Ride Program
Manager. “We all recognize the
need to bring newcomers into
the horse industry. Time To Ride
provides a platform for introducing
kids to horses and riding lessons,
with the goal of creating the next
generation of knowledgeable, edu-
cated horse lovers and owners.” She
continued, “If we can get over 300
new students into a lesson program
from 62 facilities, imagine what we
could do if we doubled or tripled
the number of approved Time To
Ride Program Facilities.”
The American Horse Council’s
2017 Economic Impact Study found
that the horse industry contributed