Hello, friends! It’s VERA here, with LC doing what she does best—carefully inspecting the grain room for any signs of unauthorized mouse activity. She takes her responsibilities very seriously. In fact, she likes to remind everyone that excellent pest control takes patience, sharp eyes, good instincts, and years of experience.
That got me thinking…
We hear one particular word around High Hopes quite a bit: Excellence.
It’s in conversations, presentations, and sometimes even in the brochures people leave lying around.
But what does excellence actually look like? It isn’t necessarily something you can walk into the barn, point to, and say, “There it is!” Instead, we’ve realized it’s woven into the procedures and people that make up High Hopes.
Take our instructors. Most people see them teaching a lesson, smiling alongside participants, and making everything look wonderfully effortless. What they don’t always see are the months—and often years—that lead up to that moment. Almost every instructor at High Hopes earns their PATH Intl. Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor (CTRI) credential, a process that requires extensive training, mentoring, teaching hours, written and practical examinations, and even submitting a teaching video for review. It takes dedication long before anyone teaches their first Therapeutic Riding lesson “solo”.
Then there’s High Hopes itself. We cats have wandered into the office often enough to know there’s a rather impressive binder sitting on a shelf. (LC insists she’s read the whole thing. I’m fairly certain she just slept on it.) Inside are the more than 160 standards required to maintain our title as a PATH Intl. Premier Accredited Center. They cover everything from horse welfare and participant safety to facilities, administration, and programming. Most visitors never see that binder, but they experience the care those standards create every time they walk through our doors.
LC was quite pleased to discover that our professional services do, in fact, contribute to one of the standards. Standard F7 asks, “Is there an implemented procedure for rodent and pest control?” Go figure. She’s been reminding everyone ever since that she’s not just a barn cat—she’s part of the accreditation process.
And then, of course, there are the horses.
People often assume therapeutic horses simply arrive ready for the job, but we’ve watched enough trials to know better. Every potential herd member is thoughtfully introduced to unusual objects, unfamiliar sounds, adaptive equipment, and all sorts of situations they might encounter in a lesson. It’s not about seeing whether they’re brave enough; it’s about discovering whether they genuinely enjoy this work. Some horses do; others find happiness elsewhere. And that’s exactly as it should be.
By the end of our conversation, LC had finally figured it out. “Excellence,” she said, “isn’t one big thing.” For once, I didn’t have anything to add.
It isn’t the certification hanging on the wall; it isn’t the accreditation plaque in the office; it isn’t the perfectly run lesson…It’s the commitment to doing ALL things well, day after day, year after year. Because every participant, every volunteer, every horse, and every family deserves nothing less.
Now, if you’ll excuse us, LC has spotted what she believes to be a suspiciously confident mouse near the feed room. Excellence, after all, never takes a day off.
With skillful paws,
VERA (and LC, Director of Rodent Relations & Standards Enforcement) 🐾