Horse Haven at Bear Creek's Reviews

I have been with robyn smith for a while and I work up there on saturday's. I have been riding for 10 years and this was one of the coolest things i have ever done with horses! I have been with robyn for almost 2 years and my step sister takes lessons with me! You should check it out you my see me!

I want to thank the owners and staff of Horse Haven at Bear Creek. As a child growing up in Seattle, I was a little horse nut trapped in the big city. As an adult, I'd all but forgotten the magic of horses. In my 40s I decided to take up riding again and stumbled upon Horse Haven and their wonderful instructor Robyn Smith. As soon as I met Robyn and she walked me through the barn introducing the horses one by one, describing their unique personalities, I knew I was in the right place. The animals here are given the utmost respect and kindness, and it shows. Robyn is a wonderful teacher. She has a bottomless well of patience and makes learning fun. Horse Haven is exactly the kind of place I would have spent all my spare time as a twelve-year-old. In fact, I feel like a kid every time I visit! That in itself is priceless. Thank you!

I am a beginning rider with a life long dream to be able to ride a horse safely, and to truly understand what I am doing. Robyn has been fantastic in taking the basics and showing me step by step how to ride. With her great sense of humor and her tremendous knowledge of riding / horsemanship she makes every lesson an incredibly fun experience.

I am a 15 year old in 9th grade. I have been riding horses for 8 years now. I have had a wide variety of experiences with many different teachers for my first 6 years of riding, but, my favorite years have been the last two, with Robyn. Her way of riding is more eye-opening, and I love being able to know all of the horses different personalities and funny quirks. With my past teachers, I never got to know the horses I rode; I just rode, and I was very unbalanced. I can now stay on a horse with ease when he spooks, and keep calm instead of blaming horses for problems that humans cause. My natural horsemanship experience with Robyn Smith has been positively spectacular.

I am a 50+ woman beginning a new life, retired from the competitive biotech world, with a daughter off to college and just recently downsized our modest city home to a small farm in Montana. It may be rather cliché but I am convinced that be it fate, or God’s grace, we meet people along our journey that were “meant to be.” In my case, that would be Robyn Smith of Horse Haven.

I had the opportunity to participate in one of Robyn’s Natural Horsemanship weekend clinics and it changed the way I viewed the relationship between horse and human. Robyn is high energy and has the amazing ability to compress valuable horse and life lessons in to a short amount of time. With all of that energy, this petite woman can move huge horses with just a quiet hand gesture and a deep breath! Robyn fosters a safe and friendly environment where even a newbie, like myself, feels comfortable learning to speak horse.

Robyn was willing to put together an accelerated training program with the foundational requirements I would need to find a good horse match, as well as the education I would need to be its qualified keeper. In our short training time together, I fell in love with one of her school horses, a little Haflinger named Honey, and made the commitment to purchase and cherish her forever more. We are now happily living on 5 acres outside of Missoula where Honey and I do groundwork daily, ride, and just hang out! She even lies down on command, enjoys a massage, and listens to me as I tell her how great she is!

Robyn’s vast knowledge, Natural Horsemanship training, and willingness to design a program to meet my needs will be eternally appreciated!