Today we’d like to introduce you to Shay Carriger.
Hi Shay, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Howdy! My name is Ms. Shay, and I was a little girl who dreamed of horses! I moved many times, from Missouri to Pennsylvania, to Montana, and then back to Missouri. With a lot of grit , grace, heart and hustle, my small family of 5 built our Equine Facility, C Bar C Farms, one day at a time and one horse at a time. We committed our home and efforts to serving God & others.
Today, we are blessed to offer a faith-based, positive and encouraging experience for all who desire to come! When you arrive at our farm, you become part of the family, and we live and learn together as we walk (and ride!) in faith, love and hope.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting a family, a farm and a business from the ground up, has been anything but smooth sailing! We have encountered struggles at every turn!
Before the farm was operating at full capacity both my husband and I had to work full-time jobs and we were also building our family by raising three children.
We would come home after our daytime jobs (me, a public school teacher, and he was driving a truck) and work well into the night, building teaching and growing the ministry.
Not only that, but we were growing our horse-herd as well. We strove to learn top-notch techniques, and create a community of service professionals, like the Equine chiropractor, dentist, ferrier, veterinarian, saddle fitters and more, all to ensure that our facility had the best quality of horses to offer our riders.
Without the support of other family or financial investors, we had to problem solve, schedule, and pray our way through nearly every day, and still do!
We are blessed through each hurdle to watch God move, answer prayers, heal humans and horses, and provide for each and every need as it comes!
Today, God has blessed us with over 20 happy, healthy horses– a horse for every age and ability, which allows us to serve all who desire to come!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
C Bar C is incredibly unique in that it offers an individualized experience in a faith-based setting where you can experience nature, animals, horses, family and the love of Jesus Christ. We use our own faith-based riding curriculum that offers discipline and correction with love and encouragement. The family atmosphere meets the needs of so many, and as we always say… You may come for horse -lessons, but you leave with much more than that.
We specialize in offering equine camps where Riders can come and experience daytime, week long, or overnight experiences with horses that they build a relationship with.
While they are building that equine relationship they are also learning how to build human relationships and most importantly of all they are learning skills of how to build that very special relationship with Jesus.
Ms. Shay is most proud of the horse herd because they operate with such dignity and Grace taking care of each Rider, no matter the circumstances. The horses who live here are God-blessed, healthy, fit, & beautiful. She always says that they are our co-workers, right along with the human team of six who all work together to offer services to riders.
We are set apart from the rest because when you come for services at C Bar C, you are welcomed into the family and together we help raise our children.
We offer a strong homeschool community experience, where we pray together and work together when a need arises.
This community and family environment is blessed to watch miracles happen!
We have seen horses be healed and are able to give all glory and honor to God because we walked through the challenging time and prayed for the miracle together.
There are so many miracles, that Ms. Shay wrote a book! It is available on Amazon, and is called the C Bar C Gazette — short stories of God’s farm miracles!
Since the book has been published, Ms Shay has gone out beyond the farm, and she and her horse named Preacher, travel, preaching at Cowboy Churches, and sharing horse miracle stories.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
At the age of 6 I was living in Lakewood in Lee’s summit Missouri and asked my parents for a horse. Coming from a non-horse-related family they jokingly said that if I could pay for a horse I could have a horse.
Shortly thereafter I began taking riding lessons and started asking the ladies at the facility if I could clean their stall for them, for just a couple dollars.
I was proud and honored to purchase my first horse, named Skippy, with $1, 000 in one dollar bills, carried in a Walmart sack when I was 12 years old.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cbarcridinglessons.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1LRACEvi6f/
- Other: https://dot.cards/cbarc
