Horsin Around

In the same end of town as Spruce Meadows there’s a small horse farm/​ranch on the edge of the city which offers horse and pony camps, riding lessons, three types of birthday parties, and 45-​minute long trail rides.
I took my family out for a trail ride, and for about $ 100 the three of us got to enjoy the wonder of horse-​back riding again. The last time we went was on a ranch near Canmore for about twice as much money, but we didn’t want to travel so far. We’d like to make it more of a regular thing.
The weather was initially about 15 degrees, but dropped a touch and started raining a bit on our way back. The single path that wound through a couple fields and up and down some small hills was a little muddy and the horses slipped a little bit. There were 6 of us riders, plus the leader who tried to keep us from wandering off or stopping too long and letting our horses eat the bushes. At the very beginning we received a little tutorial on how to sit and how to steer the horse and make it stop. One of the riders kept pulling back on the reins after the horse stopped and it went backwards in a loop. He wanted that to stop so he pulled back on the reins some more. We were clearly a novice group. I had my helmet on backwards.(Helmets are mandatory for kids, but only recommended for adults.)
The horses were lovely animals, trained very well, easy to work with, although mine was a little prone to looking at the tempting empty field and my wife’s horse was a bit of a chow hound. The staff were awesome.
All summer they offer pony camps for kids 4 – 7 and horse camps for kids 8 and over. Birthday parties include pony/​horse rides, wagon rides, petting zoo, and a barbecue.
If you don’t want any of that you can get a day pass that gets you all that fun stuff (except the trail rides and lessons).
(Also, Google Maps thinks this is in Priddis, but it’s not. It’s on the edge of Calgary.)