To share her love of horses with her students, science teacher Rachel Carey created the Equestrian Club, Raider Riders.

“I work at a horse rescue, and my [students] last year always asked me to take them out there and I couldn’t figure out a way to take them out there,” Carey said. “So we did this.”

Raider Riders consists of 16 members who meet up every other Thursday and drive out to Rockwall to help at the non-profit organization, Throwaway Ponies, and attend to the horses’ needs.

“We [met] all the horses, [learned] the names, heard their back story and everything,” sophomore Kevin Nguyen., who serves as vice president said. “We took some of the horses into the training ring, and we brushed their coating, cleaned them and we kind of gave them love.”

While at the ranch, the students are able to do trail rides and take care of the horses.

“Our trail boss puts together educational stuff about the horses like colors, breeds and halter parts,” Carey said. “[The students] are learning about [horses] here and then we go out to the barn and they’re grooming them. They’re unloading hay, scooping manure.”

As the year passes, the students will learn how to retrain the horses that have already learned how to ride.

“Later on in the year at the ranch, they should be paired up with their own horse, and they are going to, under guidance, teach [the horse] what it needs to know,” Carey said.

Though Carey believes that many of the students will not have any interactions with a horse after they leave, it will have been a great experience for them.

“I think that it’s really cool, because this is an experience that most kids are never going to have,” Carey said. “This is something that’s unique, that will be a different thing in their lives.”