Photo by Bill Green Betsy Ayers teaches and trains horses using the animal's sense of trust and and the rider's sense of balance. She is shown training Dinah, 9, who has seldom been ridden, by leading her around a ring on a halter and lead.

Ayers, who works in Rocky Ridge and Boonsboro, teaches and trains using the animal's sense of trust and the rider's sense of balance and focus.

No student gets on the back of a horse without being able to control it from the ground, using a lunge line.

"If you can't do it on the ground, you have no business being on the horse," Ayers said.

That's not the way she learned it. Ayers grew up, horse crazy, in Mechanicsburg, Pa. She couldn't afford lessons, however, and her passion was limited to books and pony rides at carnivals.

After she graduated from high school, she bought a horse, a well-trained Morgan, and taught herself to ride. Or rather, her horse taught her to ride. She won't say how old she is, but she did say that helmets weren't in fashion when she started riding.

Now she won't let her students on a horse without proper equipment, which includes a helmet, riding boots and jeans or riding pants.

"I rode my first horse in shorts and sneakers, and I still have the scars where my legs rubbed," she said.

One of her first dates with the man who became her husband was a horseback ride. Her children, now young adults, grew up around her horses.

She attended riding clinics and learned what she could about riding. She took on training jobs. "I would hop on anyone's horse," she said.

Ayers and her husband moved to Smithsburg from near York, Pa., earlier this year to take care of his mother. Ayers began teaching and training for Julie Bolton of Groff's Content Farm in Rocky Ridge. Bolton once gave lessons at the farm, but is now concentrating on her organic farming business.

Ayers is training 9-year-old Dinah, a paint horse who has seldom been ridden. Dinah prefers eating grass and sleeping over carrying riders. She's unlikely to run off, and will make an ideal lesson horse for beginners, Ayers said.

She's training Dinah to keep her head down, to make it more comfortable for her to walk.

"Horses are meant to drive from the back legs to the front," she said. That doesn't come naturally, however, so Ayers encourages her, using an overhead lunge line with gentle pressure and kissing noises. Dinah responds quickly.

"She trusts me," Ayers said. "You have to be the alpha mare."

Even kids can learn this, and do, Ayers said.

Brie Trevorrow, 13, of Thurmont , has been taking riding lessons for three summers. From Ayers, she is learning to look in the direction she wants the horse to go. That's a technique essential for many sports, which sounds easy but is often one of the hardest concepts to learn.

Brie starts each lesson picking the feet of her horse, then saddling her horse. While going from the walk to the trot to the canter, Ayers reminded her to look where she wants the horse to go, especially when she's turning in quick circles to step over bars placed on the ground.

The horse picks up on those subtle body cues, feeling the rider's slight shifts.

"They can feel you twist and turn," Ayers said. This method worked for Brie. Each time she turned, her horse quickly followed Brie's commands.

"Balance is the only thing that's going to keep you in the saddle," Ayers said. "Your position is your ear, your shoulder, your hip and your ankles in a straight line. That's what helps you keep your center of gravity."

The stomach should be tucked in, allowing the rider to use core strength to stay on the horse.

She is taking certification classes by trainer Richard Shrake, and plans to hold a Shrake clinic in the spring. In the meantime, she uses Shrake's resistance-free methods.

"In the horse business, you never stop learning about horses," she said.

Ayers calls her riding business Tombetsthefarm, after her husband, Tom, and her own first name, Betsy.