Lessons
Papago Stable offers horseback riding lessons to a wide range of people. Whether you're new to riding or are looking for advanced lessons, our instructors can help you out.Meet Our Instructors
Kelli Metcalf
Horses have been Kelli's lifelong passion, and she has years of experience in training, instructing and showing. This includes volunteer work with Horses Help, a well respected therapeutic riding organization, volunteer work with the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, four years as a wrangler/instructor at the YMCA Chauncey Ranch horse camp and three years in show barn management at Dynamite Dressage Stables.
Kelli obtained her AAS in Equine Science from Scottsdale Community College in 2002 with honors, and in 2003 she passed the American Riding Instructors Association certification test in the areas of Stock Seat and Recreational Riding. That same year she began work for a large riding school in Scottsdale at Pretty Penny Ranch and later Camelot Farms, where she taught riders of all levels in both western and hunt seat. Her responsibilities there also included teaching the City of Scottsdale introductory horsemanship classes, supervising summer day camps and coaching at local shows.
Kelli was appointed the 2005 AZ state representative for the American Riding Instructors Association and in 2006, she was honored as the first runner up Trainer of the Year for the Arizona Pinto Horse Association and was delighted to win the same award for 2007. Then in 2009, she was appointed secretary for the East Valley Arabian Horse Association.
The riders and horses Kelli trains compete and win regularly on the local open circuits and have gone on to many wins at class A Arabian shows. She has helped many of her students find the right show mount and has guided children she started in beginner lessons on a longe line years ago all the way up to wins in open championship classes. She enjoys the new challenges each day places before her and her ponies, and looks forward to the many more successes that time will inevitably bring to her show team.
On the flip side, she takes an equal amount of joy in the non-competitive side of the sport and feels blessed to have the opportunity to share with riders young and old the enrichment that horses can bring to the lives of the people around them.
Kendra Keener
A Colorado native, Kendra's been riding for over 22 years, and started training horses 15 years ago. Her riding career started at age seven, when she learned the basics of classic hunt seat equitation. Kendra attended Colorado State University to double major in equine and animal science, and while she was there was a member of both the hunt seat and western equitation teams, where she had the opportunity to compete against other intercollegiate teams across the country.
While in Fort Collins, Kendra put on clinics for 4-H kids covering everything from halter and showmanship to western pleasure and horsemanship/equitation. She also had an opportunity to judge a few open shows in the area. In addition, she continued to train and ride horses of a diverse variety through this time, as well as teaching both hunt seat and western riding lessons.
After moving to Arizona, Kendra worked exercising saddle seat trained Arabians, Half-Arabians, and Saddlebreds for a National caliber trainer, and gave lessons to beginning students. In addition to training horses and teaching lessons, Kendra also spends about a month during the summers working in Oklahoma for Circle C Ranch Company, a large quarter horse breeder, where she halter breaks the babies, and helps with training and fitting the yearlings for sales. Kendra also works for large quarter horse shows, such as the Redbud Classic and the Scottsdale Sun Circuit.
Kendra has always appreciated the athleticism and diversity that horses have to offer, and has enjoyed competing in just about every discipline, from lower level dressage to team penning to speed events to hunt seat to western pleasure to quadrille. When not busy teaching lessons or training client's horses, Kendra enjoys training and showing her own paints and quarter horses.
