Today we’d like to introduce you to Liz Steffes.
Hi Liz, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
The story of Rise & Ride really starts before there ever was a ranch. I was coming out of an abusive relationship and trying to find myself again when Charlie came into my life.
Charlie was a scared horse and needed a lot of patience. When I went to meet him, he was sweating, terrified and already saddled in a round pen. If you know a thing or two about horse shopping, you know that is a red flag haha. He also had canker in his back hoof, which acts almost like a cancer and can be incredibly difficult to treat. So here I was looking at this young horse who already had a whole lot of problems and a whole lot of risk ahead of him.
I did not care. I could see that he needed somebody who was willing to understand him. Somebody who would listen to what he was saying and let him be himself instead of expecting him to live up to this big standard that had been set for him as a Clydesdale with his pedigree.
Carson, who is now my husband, and I worked with Charlie day and night. His canker alone required anywhere from two to four hours of care every single day. A lot of that depended on how trusting Charlie was feeling that day too. Sometimes working on his hoof was a very slow process, and we had to meet him where he was instead of rushing him through it.
After more than a year of constant care and research, we finally got his hoof stabilized. Somewhere along the way, Charlie changed too. He became this completely different, trusting horse. He still had his moments of course, but suddenly he was letting us drape huge blankets over him, put costumes on him and even dance around him with silks. You name it, we probably tried it haha. He was showing us that he knew we were not going to hurt him and that he trusted us enough to try new things.
That whole process really changed Carson and me too. We realized how many horses are probably just misunderstood. Sometimes there is a reason behind the behavior and they just need someone willing to slow down long enough to figure it out. We genuinely loved that process with Charlie. There was so much joy in finally realizing we had made a difference for this horse that five previous owners had overlooked. It made us want to keep learning and keep giving other horses that same chance.
And for Charlie? Boy, we had shown him a lot of new things already, but little did he know we had the biggest new thing coming all our way.
In 2020, our family purchased an old riding ranch and decided to take a chance on this dream. We knew we loved working with horses and especially understanding the care side of it, but you also quickly learn that you cannot sustain a ranch this size without offering something to the public.
The old riding ranch had been retired for some time, so there was a lot of work to do before it could really function as one again. Carson and I, along with family and friends, spent those first months cleaning up trails, building new ones, clearing pastures and cutting back years of overgrowth. There was always something that needed to be cleaned, fixed or rebuilt.
While we were working on getting the property itself ready, my sister Carolyn, started working on the other side of the dream. She helped us figure out what Rise & Ride Ranch was going to look and feel like, what services made sense for us, and how we wanted to introduce ourselves to people. A few months in, she built our website and started our Facebook page so people could actually find us and learn what we were doing.
I started out teaching lessons on our little herd of three. As lessons grew, we adopted in a few rescue horses, worked with them and slowly started involving them too. Once we introduced trail rides, things slowly began to shift. I would still teach lessons on our off days, then organize and guide rides with Carson, my sister and whoever else from our little circle could lend a hand. During the week, when Carson and my sister were working their full time jobs, we were lucky to have friends and volunteers help us keep things moving. Then when my brother in law, Niall, moved in, he jumped right in and started guiding rides with us too.
It really was a family effort from the beginning, and we were figuring a lot of it out as we went. 🙂
We never planned Rise & Ride to become something “big.” We like the small and personal side of it, and that is something we have held onto ever since. Our daytime rides are still private and usually made up of couples or small families, so average rides of two to four people at a time. Once in a while we will host a larger group, but that really is not the normal experience we want to provide. 🙂
What we realized pretty quickly was that staying small also allowed us to stay much more in tune with the horses. We could pay attention to how they were feeling and make sure they were getting the rest and care they needed between rides.
The more we learned about horse care and the more relationships we built with the professionals around us, the more our entire outlook changed. We knew we wanted our horseback rides to work around the horses, not the other way around.
As more horses needing a softer place to land came into our lives, the care side of the ranch naturally became a much bigger part of our purpose. That eventually led us to form R&R Rehabilitation, our nonprofit, which helps us provide the additional lifelong rehabilitation and care many of these horses need.
Today, people may first find us because they want to go horseback riding or experience one of our Glow in the Dark rides, but we hope they leave seeing the horses a little differently too. They are individuals with their own stories and needs, and we feel really lucky that we get to give them a home while also sharing them with the people who come through our gates.
We definitely never had every step of this perfectly mapped out. Rise & Ride just kept growing as we learned more, met new horses and figured out what mattered most to us. At the heart of it, we are still just a small family that really loves these horses and feels incredibly lucky that other people get to come love on them too. ❤️
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Oh gosh, no haha. I do not think anything involving horses, lowland, Michigan weather and the public could ever be described as a completely smooth road.
A lot of our struggles have honestly just come from learning as we go. We knew we cared about horses, and we knew what kind of place we wanted to create. The rest we have learned by doing it, sometimes successfully and sometimes by realizing very quickly that something needed to change.
The horses themselves have probably taught us the hardest lessons. When you choose to take in older horses or horses with complicated histories, you are also choosing everything that can come along with that. There have been expensive diagnoses, long rehabilitation periods, horses we thought would be part of the riding program that ultimately told us they could not be, and some really heartbreaking losses. You can put months or years into helping a horse and sometimes the kindest decision you can make for them still ends up being the hardest one.
Financially, that can be difficult too. Horse care is expensive to begin with, and when you are trying to run a business while also making decisions based on what is best for the horse, those two things do not always agree. Sometimes the horse needs time off when you really need them working. Sometimes a horse needs to retire completely. Sometimes the vet bill shows up at exactly the same time the tractor decides it also needs attention. That is just ranch life.
Weather has been another constant lesson. We are in Michigan, so you can plan all you want and Mother Nature will very quickly remind you that she is actually running the schedule. Rain, mud, snow, heat and flooding can change things overnight. When your business relies heavily on trails and animals, you learn to be flexible very quickly.
Then there is the people side of it. As we have grown, we have had to get better about setting boundaries and being comfortable saying no. No to a ride because a horse needs rest. No when a rider is not a safe fit for one of our horses. No to squeezing in one more group because there is technically space on the calendar. Those decisions are not always popular and sometimes they cost us money, but we have learned that protecting the horses and the experience we want to provide has to come first.
I think one of the biggest struggles has simply been accepting that we cannot save every horse and we cannot make everyone happy. I would probably take every sad horse I saw if Carson let me haha, but we have had to learn our limits. Giving twenty horses really good care is more important to us than taking in thirty and stretching ourselves too thin.
But I also think those struggles are why Rise & Ride looks the way it does today. Every difficult horse, mistake, giant vet bill, muddy spring and hard decision has made us stop and ask what we could do better. We are definitely still learning, and I hope we always are. 🙂
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I think people probably know us for the Glow in the Dark rides first. They are definitely what catches people’s attention online in videos, but what we really specialize in is creating small, personal riding experiences while putting a lot of thought into the horse underneath you.
Our normal rides are intentionally small, usually couples, families or a few friends. We like it that way because it gives us time to actually talk to people, match them thoughtfully with a horse and let the experience feel personal instead of just getting a line of people on horses and moving them down a trail.
Our Glow rides are a little different because those are not a private experience and more of a shared group experience between 8-10 riders. It’s really about the spectacle of watching the lights reflect off the trees and listening to the quiet sounds of the night critters as you move down the trail. Winter makes them even more special because the snow picks up the light and carries it through the woods. After a fresh snowfall, when the branches are heavy with snow, it is especially magical watching everything change colors as the horses pass.
My sister actually designed and makes the Glow tack we use today. We were the first to introduce the lighted skirts that drape over the backs of the horses, and it has been really fun watching riders and even other ranches pick up that idea since.
We are also known for our holiday rides. Every year we do Halloween and Christmas rides. My sister and I hand-sew skirts and collars and piece together the costumes to fit each horse’s personality. Those rides are intentionally easy and short since they attract a lot of young ones, and we have a little goodie bag waiting for them when they finish. And yes, the adults get one too! 😉
Another thing I am really proud of too is the youth side of what we do. Some of our volunteers who have shown strong dedication, good horsemanship and a horse care first mindset are given the opportunity to participate in an annual 5-Day Horse Clinic. The clinic is a 4 H opportunity that gives these kids the chance to really build a partnership with our horses.
Beginning in the winter, they work with their horses every single week on care, body work, training and communication. By the time the clinic comes around, they have already put months into learning that horse and understanding what they need. During the five days they get to really hone those skills through Western, English, jumping, gymkhana and showmanship. It gives them a place to challenge themselves, but the bigger goal for us is that they learn to put the horse first through all of it.
Behind the scenes, horse care has really become the heart of Rise & Ride Ranch. We do not want to force the horses to fit the business. We want the business to fit the horses. Sometimes that is inconvenient and expensive haha, but I cannot imagine running this any other way. Our volunteers play such an important role in this too! We have a lot of homework in between our body work appointments. They help us stretch our horses and work on specific exercises to keep our horses moving in a way that’s healing! People can learn more about our volunteering as well as the care we provide our horses through our website, www.riseandrideranch.com
We also share on our Facebook page/stories because we really like letting people follow along with what happens outside of just coming for a ride. We post pretty frequently about our unique events, random ranch updates and every Wednesday we share a horse care post so people can see some of the work that goes on behind the scenes too. 🙂
What I am most proud of is that we have created something that supports these horses while also letting people connect with them. Someone may come because they saw a cool Glow Ride video, then leave knowing Charlie’s story or asking questions about rehabilitation and horse care.
That means a lot to me because the horses are doing more than giving someone a ride. They are helping people understand them a little better too. ❤️
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was definitely the kid bringing home every animal, frog, bug, reptile, rodent and little critter I thought needed help. If there was an animal in need, I was there. I have always been really curious about animals and wanted to understand them, especially the ones other people might overlook.
I was also a dancer growing up and was very loud, talkative and full of ideas. My sister was usually right there with me helping bring those ideas to life, which I guess has not changed much. 🙂
We grew up having a lot of adventures around our property together. We would make boats out of kiddie pools and float around the swamp, explore outside and spend hours watching whatever animals we could find. We really loved understanding the nature around us and figuring things out together.
Looking back, it makes a lot of sense that we ended up doing what we do now. The animals have changed and our projects have gotten a little bigger than kiddie pool boats, but that curiosity and love for taking care of things has always been there. ❤️
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.riseandrideranch.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/riseandrideranch/
