A 501(c)(3) nonprofit college-preparatory academy for grades 9 through 12, designed for students whose lives already revolve around horses. We open Fall 2026 on 37.9 acres in Penn Valley, California.
Three hundred and fifty horses started, mostly young ones. Twenty years on the Hunter-Jumper A circuit, both national and international, training first under Olympian Peter Breakwell and then in Europe with Miguel Leal. Through all of it, the same kind of student kept showing up at my barn: sharp, restless, more at home in the saddle than at a desk.
I saw the pattern more than once. Bright equestrian kids caught inside a school system that couldn’t bend to fit them. After enough years of watching it happen, I opened the doors before I had permission to believe it would work.
, Laura Bruner · Founder
What the peer-reviewed science actually shows.
of U.S. high-schoolers report persistent sadness or hopelessness.
adolescents experiences a mental health condition every year.
of U.S. adolescents ages 12 to 17 had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.
Equine-assisted curriculum produces a large measurable effect on adolescent anxiety and depression, roughly three times the average effect of the school-based mental-health programs the field has been running for years.
For these students, the barn is where the learning happens, not where it stops.
Online college-preparatory high-school curriculum. 27 certified equine courses across five tracks: Equine Science · Equine Business · Equine Law · Reproduction & Genetics · Biotechnology. CTE + UC a-g portfolios complete.
Mental health is built into the environment from the start. The equine-assisted curriculum draws directly on peer-reviewed adolescent psychosocial research, and daily barn time sits at the center of the day rather than the edge of it.
Graduates leave with a direct path into the equine workforce. Two hundred volunteer hours, college-application portfolio, and credentialing in motion: USEF, USHJA (LOI signed), ARIA, RACE (MOU drafted), and AVMA.
A name placed here today is still here long after the gift is made.
Your name on a saddle in the tack room, used every day by a student.
Engraved plaque naming a barn stall. There for decades to come.
Covering student academic needs.
A named permanent campus asset and a place on the Founding 30 wall.
Named on a major campus asset. The barn, the arena, or the track program.