Victory's Gait has multiple opportunities available for the youth of the community to become acquainted with small farm management, and foster a love for working with horses. We offer both weekly and monthly programs that instill life-long skills into the students who participate.

Victory's Gait has a weekly team of students who help steward the farm and teach the lessons. Each team member is classified by experience and age. The V-team has different levels that the members are divided into.


A.S.T.I Senior
A.S.T.I Junior of Excellence
A.S.T.I Junior
Shadow

A.S.T.I stands for "Apprentice, Student, Teacher, Instructor". A.S.T.I's have a higher level of experience, age, and maturity and authority with respect to their internal levels of Senior, Junior of Excellence, and Junior. The ages of A.S.T.I's range from 12 - 18. Shadow's are just as the name implies, they shadow and learn from the A.S.T.I's how to teach and take care of the animals. Shadow's ages range from 10+ and depending on experience and age whether they move to the next level.

The team is divided into sub-teams that meet on Wednesdays and Fridays. The Students partner with one of the horses to hone there skills and expand their experience.  We have a blast learning through games, exercises and hands on techniques.

A typical team day consists of doing morning chores and turn-out, where we learn how to handle the daily needs of the horses by mixing feed, cleaning water troughs, setting out hay, and mucking. Then we have lunch and have a devotion presented by a team member on a rotational basis. Horse time is after lunch, where we work on our assigned goals for the various levels of experience in natural horsemanship. We also teach lessons in the afternoon, as they are scheduled. We finish with afternoon chores and turn-in.
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Pal joining the team for devotions.
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Summer Fun

Our days are also filled with, but not limited to, a rounded schedule of Horse play or trail rides, learning time, Farm tasks and projects, Cool creative projects, Life Skills, Devotional and Journaling time. Sometimes we coordinate field trips, pool play, and there is always time for good old fashion, fun in the yard being kids!

We also learn public speaking skills with presentations in front of our teammates and in our community events. We learn "Community" as our families pitch in on the farm and in each others lives. We often do V.G Community service projects, where we pool together and help each other with task at our own homes i.e. fence fixing, moving, and other projects.

Our weekly team gives back to our community through Community Service projects - filling needs at other farms, shelters and local families and businesses as the needs arise. Being the hands and feet of Jesus is the "Way We Walk." We participate in coordinating and executing Field trips and Scouting etc.. Badge fulfillment days to serve our Home-School and academic/extra curricular community needs. 

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Playing the Sideways Game with Pal
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Jumping with Scarlett

The Young Horsemanship program is our new monthly program that allows students who can't attend on a weekly basis to nurture their love for horses by increasing their skills, and learning farm management. Every third Saturday of the month they meet to care for the horses, have a devotional time, and work with their horses. For more information about how you can participate, contact us via email or phone.

   S.M.A.R.T.E.R Goals   

Our efforts here at Victory’s Gait are focused on the development of leaders who lead well. One of the ways we accomplish this is through training in the use of S.M.A.R.T.E.R Goals. This approach teaches students to set goals that are specific in nature, measurable in outcomes, and achievable. Evaluation and completion dates for the goals are established, and various risks associated with the pursuit of the goal are recognized and addressed. Students have the opportunity to use this training as the pursue proficiency in in their natural horsemanship skills, and as they tackle various improvement projects in small farm management, One of the great takeaways with this training is that it is transferable to any area of their life for years to come.

    The "Gait" of Victory   

At Sweet Dreams Farm we believe it's "The way we walk" as Christians, that we are called to walk worthy of Christ in our everyday lives. In Micah 6:8 it says, "He has shown you O man what is good, therefore what does the Lord your God require of you? But to do justly, love mercifully, and walk humbly with your God." At Victory's Gait "The way we walk" is humbly with our God, and upright with each other.

At Sweet Dreams Farm we teach Natural Horsemanship to our horses and students. Parelli Natural Horsemanship is a method we like to incorporate into what we teach. To visit Parelli's site click the provided link.

The methods of Natural Horsemanship are to work with horse psychology to train and build a relationship. To become our horse's partner, building trust, so he knows we are not his predator. The team members learn to safely ride bareback and bit-less with the training goal of reaching "Liberty". Liberty is working with your horse without anything on them, no saddles, no halters, reins, or bits and no ropes. What it does is bring your relationship with your horse to the point where they choose you as their leader. It is the ultimate relationship challenge, will your horse choose to want to play with you? It is quite the rewarding accomplishment when your horse makes that decision!

The Victory's Gait team

Header Image: V-Team 2016