Center for Horsemanship, Outdoor Leadership & Land Stewardship
Vocational training on working ranch lands near Loveland, Colorado.
Working ranches are disappearing. Land gets subdivided, families sell, and the knowledge that kept those acres productive walks off with the people who held it.
The skills go first: starting a colt, reading a pasture, shoeing a horse, running cattle without wrecking the ground. These are learned by doing, next to someone who already knows how, over months, not weekends.
Communities still need those people. Ranches need hands who can ride and think, conservation districts need stewards who understand production, and outfitters need guides who can keep guests safe. The demand is real; the training pipeline is thin.
H.O.L.L.S. is a vocational arm of the Heart-J Center for Experiential Learning, a Colorado nonprofit. The Center is the sole instructional and certifying authority for every program described here. No partner, landowner, or affiliate teaches, evaluates, or issues credentials on our behalf.
Programs are clock-hour based and competency-based. Curriculum is backward-designed and delivered through a gradual release of responsibility: instructor demonstrates, students work alongside the instructor, students perform under supervision. Progression is earned through observable performance, not seat time alone.
The school is open to civilians and veterans alike. Admission is selective and based on readiness for physically demanding, hands-on work.
Each certificate pairs classroom briefings and instructor demonstration with hundreds of supervised practical hours on the ranch and in the shop.
Students learn to safely start, handle, and ride horses for ranch and working environments. Instruction runs Monday through Friday under continuous instructor supervision, moving through three phases from foundational safety to advanced occupational application.
Hoof care, equine anatomy, forging fundamentals, and shoeing for ranch horses, taught in the shop and under the horse with a working herd and a practical apprenticeship model.
This program teaches grazing planning, soil health, water stewardship, ranch systems, and the practical economics of keeping working land in production.
H.O.L.L.S. stays involved after graduation, helping students and graduates connect with employers, mentors, continuing education, and professional resources across ranching, horsemanship, regenerative agriculture, conservation, and outdoor leadership.
Explore Career ResourcesH.O.L.L.S. is open to everyone. It is not a veterans-only school. But many of our programs are intentionally structured for veterans using Veteran Readiness and Employment benefits, also known as VR&E or Chapter 31.
That structure shows up in the details: clock-hour instruction, daily attendance tracking, competency-based progression, documented supervision ratios, a pro-rata refund policy aligned with VA requirements, and a housing disclosure that keeps housing separate from tuition.
VA and Colorado State Approving Agency approvals are pending. Benefit use is subject to those approvals and to your counselor's determination.
Chapter 31 supports veterans with a service-connected disability in preparing for and keeping suitable work.
Open →Apply for VR&E through VA.gov, then send your counselor our program information packet.
Open →Eligibility, subsistence allowance, attendance reporting, and what a clock-hour program means for you.
Open →Education benefit comparison, the GI Bill Comparison Tool, and Colorado State Approving Agency contacts.
Open →
Twelve weeks. 390 clock hours. Monday classroom, technical briefings, and farrier instruction; Tuesday through Friday supervised practical rotation on an instructor-assigned string of horses. Graduates are prepared for entry-level, supervised work in horse handling and ranch operations.
The H.O.L.L.S. school herd is central to instruction. Individual horse profiles and authentic photography are being updated and will be published when verified.
Students learn on a herd of school horses. Support covers feed, farrier work, vet care, and the training time that keeps a school horse safe and honest.
These tracks are planned expansion, not current offerings. They will open only when instructors, facilities, and approvals are in place.
Horse packing, outfitter operations, risk management, and guest experience for the working backcountry professional.
Observation, movement, stewardship, leadership, and the practical judgment required to work and travel safely on the land.
More tracks will be announced as instructors, facilities, and regulatory approvals come into place.
Tell us what you want to learn and we will walk you through admissions, tuition, housing, and benefit eligibility once approvals are in place. Sponsors: a seat underwrites a student for a full certificate.