Friday, September 1 marks the two-year anniversary of the day I stepped onto the old Wills Ranch property to become its new owner. Since then, my team and I have tirelessly restored, renewed, and updated this lovely old Fort Worth ranching legacy to nurture and shepherd it into its new era as a top-notch private equestrian community offering boarding, training, and 129 acres of rolling terrain for riding and enjoying horses just minutes away from the city. Two of the most noteworthy milestones to celebrate over the past two years include:
Barn renovation and upgrades: from installing concrete footers between to adding additional runs, windows, and plexiglass, to wood fronting, new roof insulation, repairs, and gallons upon gallons of paint, the living quarters for nearly 100 horses of all ages, breeds, stages, and purposes are now in tip-top form. (Although, as anyone in this business knows, projects are continuous and ongoing!)
Other barn projects included gutting and upgrading secure tack rooms in all three barns, creating a member lounge area (complete with a sitting area and fireplace for hanging out before, after—or instead of—a ride, just inside the Show Barn), adding wash racks in every barn (plus one multiple station one outside, near the main turnout gate). We continue to focus on making sure our barns are a nice place to be — for the horses of 4Hearts and their people!
Indoor Arena upgrades: Having a real indoor arena — one that can be fully closed to maximize warmth in the dead of winter or opened wide to catch any stray breezes while giant exhaust fans suck out the hot air — is key to year-round riding, even through both the hottest and coldest extremes of our crazy Texas weather.
The 300-foot, full-size Wills Ranch Indoor arena, created decades ago by this visionary Fort Worth ranch family, offered a fantastic starting place for creating my dream of year-round riding with perfect performance horse footing and bright LED lighting that exponentially increases opportunities for riding regardless of weather, work schedules, or riding disciplines and levels. In addition to scraping, deep cleaning, and power washing the ceiling, we added a thick layer of brand-new spray foam insulation, cosmetic upgrades like wood fronting and new hardware on the stalls, and a fresh coat of paint (with our signature navy blue accents) all around.
In the arena itself, SC Bell construction first scraped out 18 inches of old broken down sand, repacked and laser leveled the base, and then added three and a half inches of cushion sand and a half-inch of asphalt sand to create ideal performance horse footing.
Next to horse care, taking care of that arena is our top priority. This past month, I had Bell Construction back out to maintain it (yes, just like you would a car), and they re-leveled it and made sure that the footing depth was what it should be. To help maintain this perfect footing daily, I just purchased a brand new TR3E drag from ABI. And, because maintaining an arena like this means you truly have to think about it as a living organism, every day, we put a minimum of 500 gallons of water on it to keep it from drying out.
I’m so proud of all we’ve accomplished in two short years — and I couldn’t have done it without my wonderful team.
Most of the work here we have done “in-house,” and my hardworking team has yet to meet a project they couldn’t handle—dirty jobs included. And as you will see in the slide show, they had their work cut out for them!
A special shout also out to the Wills family for creating this place, caring for it for decades, and being such excellent stewards of this land we now get to enjoy in its new iteration. As the daughter of a Colorado rancher, I genuinely appreciate and value all they have done to make 4Hearts able to be what it is today — and will be in the years to come!
