Ranch Trips

Due in part to the limited space on our Annual Horse Roundup and Drive, we appreciate having been asked by so many for the chance to come to our place in Montana and spend some time working with our horses.
 
2008 Ranch Work Weeks:
June 13-17
July 4-8
August 1-5

 
Montana Horses will open the Mantle Ranch, and our life with horses, for three 5-day Ranch Work Weeks in 2008.   We happily invite a limited number of qualified* guests to assist as we go about the business of "making horses" and the hustle of every day life on a working horse ranch.   

Kail and Renee are proud to be joined by cousin Steve Mantle,
 professional horse trainer and contract wild horse trainer for the BLM and owner of the Mantle Wild Horse Training and Adoption Center (www.mantleswildhorses.com) in Wyoming.  Steve's reputation as a leading expert at gentling and training wild horses makes his participation in these exclusive stays a feather in the cap of any participant, and an honor for the Mantles, a family of horsemen, and their various Mantle Ranches across the West. 

Summertime work on the Mantle Ranch in Three Forks,  a horse leasing business, involves working and making horses.  By June, many of the summer lease horses are out at their jobs, and those remaining are home for a reason-usually because they need work. Each guest will be assigned two horses, a solid ranch horse to do the job and a colt, or unbroke horse, to start in our program.  These colts have been chosen by us to continue on at Montana Horses.  They will become our partners and our livelihood.  You will be responsible for getting them off to a good start so that they can continue in the tradition of all Mantle horses-by earning a living.  This is a rare opportunity to learn from the best how to start a horse right and the actuality of running horses for a living.  This is an opportunity to jump in with both feet, totally immersed in the reality of operating a horse ranch with a purpose.

 This isn't our hobby, this is our life.  We want you to share it with us.

Join us.  Each five-day trip will emulate the normal summer work of our horse operation and involves "Learning by Doing."  We believe the best way to learn how to gather horses is to gather horses, the best way to teach a horse or rider how to be a ranch or trail horse is to get outside on the trail and go, and the only way to really know horses is to start at the beginning and try it yourself.

LEARNING
~ Four Days of Training with Steve Mantle and a colt.

~ Plus horsemanship sessions on your ranch-trained Western saddle
horse if you or the horse need or want it.   

DOING
~ Daily Horse Roundups (gather in the herd from several thousand
acres and sort off the horses needed, every morning )

~ Ranch Work: moving stock, shoeing, scattering salt, feeding,
riding/fixing fence, mucking around in the corrals sorting and
doctoring, hauling stock, and whatever else needs to be done-it
changes every day!       

~ Riding: Use your saddle horse, or perhaps your colt, to do the daily
chores on the ranch.  Miles and miles of mountain and foothill
Montana horse country and hours in the saddle await.

Warning:  We are a real working ranch,  not a guest ranch.  Kail often says, "If you want a watered down, packaged version of the Old West-this isn't it."  No kidding.  If you are interested in visiting a guest ranch, we can offer some great suggestions of some wonderful ranches that use our horses.  Our accommodations are 4-person bunkhouse style cabins divided between men and women.  Simple meals are taken with our cowboys in a cook shack.  We offer you a chance to run horses, because that is what we do and we want you to share it.  We offer you a chance to work with Steve Mantle because we have horses that truly need to be worked and we need him, and you, to help us.  We can offer you a chance to see what a real working horse ranch, a horse leasing business, does on a normal day.   Everything we have and do is possible because our livelihood is generated from leasing our horses, not hosting guests.  Your presence helps us.   If, in return, you enjoy the exhilaration of a herd of horses galloping full-on and free ahead of you, and the challenge of accomplishing something you didn't think you had in yourself,  then we have helped you, too. 

The experience of life with our horses is our greatest and most valuable asset. 
If we don't share it with others, then we don't deserve it.
 
 
*Participants must be physically fit and should be somewhat familiar with horses.  Riding level is intermediate to advanced (you decide how much you can handle).  Cost is $3000 per person for 5 days, this includes your horses and tack and Steve Mantle Clinics, lodging, meals, and transfers from Bozeman, MT the day prior and following.  Lodging (no meals) is available the night prior to each session.  A minimum of four people and maximum of eight is required to conduct each Week. 

Reservation forms available here or call 888 685-3697.  

Montana Horses, Inc.
Kail Mantle and Renee Daniels-Mantle
9700 Clarkston Road Three Forks, MT 59752
(406)285-3541 or (888) 685-3697-toll free (406) 581-6501-cell (406)285-0918-fax
www.montanahorses.com info@montanahorses.com