Moose River Farm

With its 11-stall barn, capacious paddocks and indoor riding ring—a giant yellow-and-white tented fabric structure with an aluminum frame—Moose River Farm resembles an exceptionally well-maintained riding stable. Surrounded by forest and located off a dirt road in the central Adirondacks, the complex for many years was just that. Owner Anne Phinney ran it during the summer, when she was off from her job teaching middle school at Town of Webb Union Free School, in Old Forge. Phinney, an accomplished equestrian and trainer with 50 years’ experience, is an inspired and dedicated teacher as well as an animal lover (a pair of iguanas, rats, a hedgehog family and a chameleon took up residence in her classroom). But as her horses aged out, she decided to pursue a different kind of teaching.

So she stopped offering riding lessons and in 2016 began offering sessions on Equi-Reflection, which involves horses but no riding. “These are unmounted sessions with horses, in which the participant uses his or her body language to influence leadership with the horse,” she explained.

One of her first Equi-Reflection participants: “Animals can sometimes take us to a place we can’t quite take ourselves.” The woman returned for weekly sessions throughout that summer. Besides healing bereavement, Equi-Reflections also help teenagers, particularly girls, build confidence, Phinney said.