About Us

We just keep growing!!

This all started with a bored 3 yr old perched on my husband’s old cow horse Tonka.  I found that my son was too disconnected being on a ‘big horse’ after 5 minutes and became bored, but on the ground was unsafe because he was so tiny. So, we decided to buy our first pony, Kick-A-Poo to go on our ‘Ranch Adventures’.  We would do chores and go different places, find the cows, and actually DO THINGS to make it fun enough for him to want to ‘play and stay’.  Then came 4 more smaller ponies, a few friends for play dates and the rest is history….

2023 Instructors & Coaches:

A little about myself… my name is Kari Carr and I am a mom to two littles, as well as the owner/operator/trainer/instructor/coach and chief poop shovel-er of HorsePlay.  😉   I grew up with horses and although my mom sent me to Pony Club to ride English, I would always come home and switch back to a western saddle to move cows.  To escape chores, I would hop on my horse bareback and run off to a favourite spot to read, eat berries and swim my horse around in our pond, or wade out and surprise fishermen in the Bow River.  I loved to barrel race at local gymkhanas and jackpots, and then rode for the Calgary Stampede for 8 years as a Calgary Stampede Ranchgirl.  After my year as a Calgary Stampede Princess, I married into the Carr family, learned about the feedlot business (3,000 head of cattle) and am still learning about all the Carr family history on this ranch from 1885.

I have a fondness for palominos, I enjoy training all sizes of equines, as well as rehabilitating and fixing founders.  I still work cattle for my husband, Cody (just plug your ears some days) and I love taking on other people’s horses that need problem solving, tune-ups and/or conditioning.  I am truly blessed and grateful for this life.

 

Kristin Matus got on her first pony at the age of 11 and never looked back!  After years of competing in the English show world, she traded in her field boots for cowboy boots and is trying to figure out the sport of barrel racing before her 5 year old daughter gets better at it than she is. She worked for several years as an instructor and horse trainer for a therapeutic riding stable in Ontario where she worked with kids and adults with a variety of disabilities. As a Kindergarten teacher who never quite made her way back to the classroom after her son was born, Kristin has lots of experience playing with little humans and has lots of tricks up her sleeve for keeping kids engaged and having fun with their ponies. This multi-tasking mama is often seen juggling 2 kids, 1 spotted pony and an extremely patient palomino mare. Just out here living her best life!

Support Staff & Wranglers:

Last but not least, Stacey Kromm, our Big Rock Ranch administrator is the key to keeping us organized!  Since her daughter Lexi (one of our senior wranglers) almost lives here, it was easy to recruit this HorsePlay mama into the team formally.  She works mostly from home, shuttles kids and wranglers back and forth to town and to barrel races, she makes ranch deliveries, ‘organizes’ us, the office and the bunkhouse.  Most importantly, she handles all the emails, FB messages and social media as well as all the ranch invoicing with kindness and diplomacy.

 

We want to give a big shout out to our volunteers!  Its always so incredible to watch these teens and tweens build their confidence and leadership skills, but keep their sweetness and playfulness with the little kids.  These kids are invaluable and willing to help anyone and any animal in need.  They help ALL of us at HorsePlay, coaching kids and helping moms, they’ll hop on a naughty pony that needs a tune-up and they also pitch in to help with ranch chores and moving cows.  We work hard, play hard and we ALWAYS come home dirty!!  We couldn’t do all of this without them.  Thank you crew.

 

Bragging Rights

We are also very proud of the article published in the Western Horse Review magazine on how HorsePlay started. Worth the read! Please check it out!