ADDISON, Vt. (WCAX) – Last year, we told you about Anna Willenbaker and Better Days Ranch in Addison, which offers horse riding lessons.
At the time, Willenbaker and her students were raising funds to build a new covered arena.
The small round pen they had didn’t have enough room and made training weather dependent.
In an exciting next step, work began in mid-august on the new 50 by 100-foot arena.
Willenbaker says it’s powerful seeing the group’s hard work pay off. “We had our grand opening a couple of weeks ago, and it was just such a powerful, powerful moment, where we all just kind of sat here and were like “We did it, this is incredible. And we had all of the students and parents put their handprints on the arena and we all just kind of like had an incredible moment together,” she said.
Now that the arena is built, Willenbaker and her students are hosting Halloween and Christmas trail rides again to raise funds to cover it, which she hopes will happen by spring of 2027.
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