Today we’d like to introduce you to Annie Bolognino.
Hi Annie, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Equineimity LLC Originated in Bozeman Montana around early 2008. It was my first swing at a homegrown public horsemanship and riding lesson program geared for beginners. I start with children ages 3+ and teach adults into their 70’s! No matter the age or experience I try to make learning about horses, and riding balanced regardless of saddle or style. English western and bareback are all welcome!
I was born and raised in the suburbs of Michigan just outside Ann Arbor. I was an athlete, growing up playing competitive softball and horseback riding when I wasnt on the ball field. Loved horses since I was five, obsessed really. I earned and saved my chore and babysitting money for riding lessons or the epic horse camp summer trip for a week stay. As a youth I was introduced to various breeds and training levels. I was the quintessential, kid that was looking for a way to help people with their horses. No amount of poop scooping was too large for me! I was always a hard worker and would do what it would take to find my way to the horse.
In my highschool and college days, I worked helping a lady with her parade Arabians, learning to desensitize and build the horses confidence to handle the pressures, sights and sounds of the parade environments. Loud bangs, booms, huge floaty things, helicopters, flares. We practiced exposing and incrementing their de-spook training at home to safely participate in the bigger parades like the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade.
Just Go with It: One of most important lessons in training the parade horses was learning to ride through a spook. Due to something unexpected happening, the horses would naturally “spook” “shy” “spin” or startle in a way that for that moment, the rider could be unseated and fall off. By slowly training the horses to spook objects and riders that could learn to be calm, sit relaxed and Just Go with it, was a skillset that took 1000s of Spooks to obtain. It was retraining my nervous system to downregulate, vs escalate. The surge of adrenaline was less and less each time within horse and rider by the time the unexpected was now something of no concern and no longer spooked the horse or rider. This built into my now tagline for my business “The practice of balance with equine partners”
Managing Life When It’s Unpredictable: Life Lessons while with horses.
Equineimity is built from the word “equanimity” websters formal definition is; “calm emotions when dealing with problems or pressure” This became my business name. Both the name and tagline is a blend of my life lessons in and out of the arena. I have had personal engagements with people or animals that required me to be the calm in the chaos. One of the hardest of life lessons for anyone is to learn to come to an internal peace with whatever chaos might happening. Big or little. Humans have a natural instinct to want to control or directly “hang onto” what they are scared of. Riding horses and being around them can simulate a very subtle form of chaos. I often time tell my clients, being horseback on a trained horse gives you the illusion that the human is in control. However, an accomplished rider is really learning to ride WITH chaos, not resist it. It’s a mental shift that takes some practice to get emotions, feelings and human natural instincts into a place of calm and steady regardless of what the environment is at that very moment. Being present and practicing living in the Moment can be something a lot of humans struggle with. But horses don’t. They are present by nature. Horses have a way of bringing you front and center to accomplishing observing and relating to the present, not the past or the future.
How does a michigan girl get from Ann Arbor to Montana to Texas?
After I granduated with my Bachelors in PE (Human Kinesiology/Movement Science) I took a summer job with a Guest ranch in Cour d’Lane Idaho. Hidden Creek Ranch was my first Kids Wrangler opportunity where as an adult I took kids for the week and played with kids and horses all week! We would trail ride, picnic and do arena games with the little guests. That summer I also started to become interested in the farrier work. That was a huge important job on a ranch to keep horses in shoes so they could continue to ride the guests up and down the mountains all week long. I saw my window of opportunity to expand my wrangler resume if I was going to try and stay on a ranch for more than just a summer. I need to learn how to shoe horses. That’s where I meet ranch farrier Jake. Jake was a huge fella. He was your epitome of a Black Smith. Standing over 6ft tall and hands the size of baseball gloves, he gave me the first experience trying to pull an old shoe off a horses foot. I remember struggling for what seemed eternity until Jake took pity on me and showed me how to grab with the puller and ‘pop’ the heels first. My next deep seed.
Horses need their feet trimmed or shod about every 6-8 weeks. No matter if they were being ridden or not. So after a second year of being a wrangler at another guest ranch, this time in Colorado, I actually stared learning to nail on my first set of shoes. After that season I committed myself to going to farrier school.
March of 2005 I attended Montana State University’s Farrier program. I earned my certificate and was deep into shoeing full time as an apprentice for 2 full time farriers in the Bozeman and Livingston areas. After 2 years of apprenticing I struck out on my own. Shoeing and tending to horses feet for customers, became a blend of shoeing and helping them with their horses and riding. Eventually, I would be shoeing their one family horse and teaching their kids, that led to teaching the parents and pretty soon I was helping the whole family with just their one solid citizen family horse!
Some of the accomplishments of my early program for example, I started with a client where we explored blending my saddle knowledge with her yoga knowledge. She was a student that came to me wanting to learn to ride but was extremely hesitant of being around the horses and certainly being on top one. We had our first lesson I could tell she was nervous. My coaching became a close blend of deep breathing and relaxation techniques that I had studied to help riders connect with their breath and the feelings of grounding their energy so they could feel the whole horse, not just the tools. Connection is important when astride a 1200 lb animal that can move fast in a flash. My student and I eventually started doing yoga and horseback retreats that she has carried on with while I headed south for more year round work.
Helping a group of Veterans: Another amazing opportunity I had after leaving Montana for more year round horse and shoeing work, was working as head Farrier and Head Wrangler for a ranch outside Park City Utah. We had an opportunity to bring military veterans onsite for the day and introduce them to horses and riding. I led the horsemanship portion and another group led the mounted work with cattle. It’s appeared the round pen demo with the veterans had a direct impact on the soldiers who were struggling with anxieties deeply rooted from their experience in combat. During my demo, I put words to the horses movements, body language, their expressions and how the horses sees and interprets the world around them. We discussed how horses live in the moment and geared and designed to be on high alert living naturally by their prey instincts. The soldiers could relate to that feeling of awareness and high sensitivity. They immediately connected to the work. I was able to show how a horse expressed through body language not with words but with the animals unspoken body language tense or calm and finding trust to live in the moment with me in its space. There was something magical happening. The soldiers were so engaged with everything that horse expressed….the flick of the tail, the holding tight of the jaw muscles, the wide eye and watching a change; the softening of the eye, a blink a lick and chew, a deep breath. A lot of these moments and experience now are being called “equine therapy” and there’s certifications and so forth, but for me and for those veterans, it was just being present and allowing time for things to unfold where a new beginning could be had. Another deep seed was planted that day in me. I knew I had a calling. the feedback was undeniable.
Guest ranch after guest ranch I wore the chaps of a farrier and the hat of a trail guide. I loved the work but was ready for something steady. I loved the rocky mountains and living the mountain life but knew it had limitations to doing the work I loved year round. I had to go south. I found myself eventually in the Houston area between ranching seasons and I began teaching leadline lessons at the Houston Polo Club. I expanded my farrier business in Texas to reach from Houston west to Brenham. Where I eventually built a full list of clients and 130+ horses on a rotation of every 6-8weeks. Shoeing became my full time role down in Texas March of 2014. One of my clients was the ranch manager for a larger cattle outfit just north of Brenham. I shod his horses at the cattle ranch and eventually ended up being called back for shoeing his cowboy crew’s horses. The ranch manager eventually took a shine to me, never having met a woman farrier before and furthermore one who was quite handy with a horse! So I became the honorary volunteer during ranch gatherings where we would traverse the 3500 acre ranch and gather in the yearling cattle for checking weights, sorting and shipping to the feedyard. Another deep seed was planted.
After several years, ranch manager and I eventually ended up getting married and I was living and breathing everything to do with cattle 7 days a week. I retired my other farrier clients and only shod what us at the ranch. Eventually, I became the Herd Health Manager with my day starting by 5:30am not ending till dark.
My job at the ranch was straightening yearling cattle and getting them healthy and eating to go on to the feedyard. Learning to look for sickness in young mixed sale barn cattle became an art form. Learning to handle them with low stress also became and art and a science all on its own. A person has to be handy horseback and since I didn’t rope I had to carefully cut a sick one from the herd and drive it to the pen. Things were a lot slower than you might imagine, but better and faster and more profitable in the long run. I remember being told my death loss percentage for my pastures was routinely around .5%. For an outfit that ran around 5k fully stocked and turned around 50k head a year to the feedyard, that’s pretty good profit right there. Most outfits are doing good with a death loss around 8-14%
All those seeds; farrier work, veterans experience, blending yoga and riding, cattle work, all planted deep seeds in me to begin a revival of my Equineimity program that I originally started in Bozeman 15+ years ago. As of November 2025 I reclaimed my Equineimity LLC and reopened in Lincoln Texas with a similar and deeper vision for my program and rebirth here.
Currently I am now a full time employee as a Juvenile Probation officer, I am hoping to root myself with a retirement where I can do my horse program full time. I currently teach private lessons on evenings and weekends on and offisite from my facility. I try to be creative and give students opportinities to work their horses in lots of different environments not just in an arena. We work on cattle offering some cattle clinics as well as intensive “Rider Retreats” to expand their knowledge and connection in the saddle. I also have “Lessons on the Trail”. Where we utilize their skills learning in the arena and apply them to riding varied terrain on the trail. I also have future hopes to earn my Masters in Clinicsl Mental Health and obtain my LPC licensure for counseling to explore and blend in the mental health struggles and using my horses to help heal and provide a connection so desperately needed in our local area.
All these life experiences and seeds planted are now beginning to bloom and take shape at my new location in Lincoln Tx. Needless to say, I am very excited for the future!
Plot twist: Nov 2024, directly right after the purchase of my 15 acres in Lincoln for pursuing my vision of rebirthing Equineimity, our community ended up fighting against another private entity from trying to dump compost on the adjoining acreage. This compost consisted of rotten spoiled meet from grocery stores, rotten dairy, basically anything no longer suitable for human consumption was going to be spread on the neighboring property for “composting” purposes. Large dumpfields, open to all rodents, hogs and buzzards ,attracting even more wildlife and diseases. I was slingshot into the fight against this. Our county already had an ordinance preventing this kind of dumping, however, we weren’t going to go without a fight. We were on the news, in the new papers and on radio. This began over a year long battle with myself and neighbors leading the charge. We ended up testifying at the State Capital in the House and Senate and accomplished with the help of our Leaders passing a Bill in the last Legislative Session to “Stop the Slop”. SB2078 was born and was intended to protect all rural counties from urban companies collecting and dumping waste in rural areas.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Words to live by……”Never never never give up!”
Pricing:
- Lesson Punch Cards $380-$600
Contact Info:
- Website: https://anniehorse.com
