Miranda Bogardus got her start as a riding instructor as a teenager at a farm near her hometown of Elgin, Illinois. Though she did not realize it at the time, she was working for a pioneer in therapeutic riding. This was in the early 1970’s, long before NARHA was a household word or the term “therapeutic riding” was widely recognized. Farm owner Jack Fawkes had a long history of taking all comers and never acknowledging the word “handicap” when it came to riding (or anything else, for that matter). Among his clients were riders with challenges ranging from hearing loss to prosthetic limbs, as well as children from a local group home who in today’s terminology would be considered “at risk”, but whom he took on as regular students. These riders were among Miranda’s earliest pupils, and she learned right away not only how to solve a wide variety of teaching questions, but also what a powerful, positive force riding and horses can be for people in hugely diverse life situations. Nearly forty years later, she is still at it. To students young, old, physically able, physically challenged, to some whose only wish is to gallop and jump and to others so fearful that to even touch a horse seems overwhelming, she has been teaching riding ever since.

Scott Bogardus came to horses in the mid 1980’s from an extensive background in dairy farming. He provides technical and “heavy lifting” support on the farm management end of things, as well as being a competitive adult jumper rider. He is just the man you want on hand when your horse won’t get on the trailer, the barn floods, the tractor won’t start, you need to get pulled out of a ditch, or any other of the many delights of farm living. Without his partnership and support, Baymare Farm could not go on.