Contact Us 

If you are interested in visiting or learning more about the St. Croix Trail Blazers, we welcome you to schedule a visit. We can also be reached via telephone or email to answer any questions you may have.

St. Croix Trail Blazers
6659 Jasmine Court North
Stillwater, MN 55082
 

​Tel: (651) 230-2581

​Email: ​karen@stcroixtrailblazers.org​

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If you or anyone in your household is sick in any manner, please stay home.

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• If you have been exposed to Covid-19, you must quarantine for 14 days or receive a negative test result.

• If you have tested positive for Covid-19, we need to know right away.  If it has been less than seven days and you were at the barn, we need to close the facility down temporarily and notify anyone you may have had contact with.  You can be contagious for three days prior to symptoms developing.

• If you have tested positive for Covid-19, in order to return to riding, 10 days must pass since onset of symptoms, you must be 24 hours with no fever or use of fever reducing medication, and you must have an improvement in symptoms.  Loss of taste or smell can linger for weeks or months after recovery but no need to delay your return.

• If you have tested positive for Covid-19 and are asymptomatic, you need to quarantine for ten days.

1. Please only have one responsible person per rider during this time if you come into the barn and go to the balcony.  On occasion we have families interested in the program come to observe, however, an appointment has to be scheduled with Karen Harjes and access is limited.  The number of people inside the facility at any one time is set to 13 or less.  If we have two or three people with a rider, that is more exposure brought into the facility which we are trying to not have happen.

2. Everyone is required to wear a mask.  It can be one your own, or we have cloth masks available to purchase $5 each.  Some good forms of masks are N95, two-layer cotton, or disposable medical masks.  Recently, there was information put out that neck gaiters, bandanas, or face shields are not as effective against spreading Covid-19.

3. Masks and helmets should be on prior to entering the barn.

4. Wait in your vehicle for the instructor to come to the patio.  The front door will now be closed.  When you see the instructor, they will take the riders one by one inside.  They will have a white board with the riders’ names so you know who they are waiting for.  Please don’t have riders wait on the patio with cold temperatures.  Instructors will continue to sign riders in.

5. Temperatures will now be checked with an infrared thermometer.  If the rider has a temperature of 100.4 or higher, they will not be able to ride.

6. Instructors will continue to have riders wash their hands.

7. Unfortunately, the antimicrobial gloves riders are using are not made for cold temperatures.  If riders wish to continue using the antimicrobial gloves, that will still be an option.  However, if the rider wants warmer gloves, we are asking that you have a separate pair of freshly laundered or new gloves that can be left at the barn where we will store them in a cabinet and labeled with the riders’ name.  Hands/gloves can be an easy way to spread Covid-19.  Not knowing where the gloves have been or possibly exposed to opens us up to more risk. 

8. Riders will go to the indoor arena to wait with a volunteer for their horse.

9. Use of your own helmet will continue.  For new riders, we are strongly suggesting you purchase your own helmet if you haven't done so.  Parts of the helmet touch the face which is not ideal for sharing.  We understand there may be some financial limitations so in those cases we will use our supply to assign helmets that will not be worn by anyone else.  We have a very limited supply of sizes and there isn't enough for everyone.  If you have a waiver, talk to your social worker because this may be something you are able to purchase with those dollars.  FleetFarm is a good source for helmets, and it must be a helmet specific to equestrian.  An equestrian helmet will indicate ASTM/SEI somewhere.  You cannot use a bike helmet.  We are more than happy to give you information in proper fitting of a helmet also.

10. The instructor will bring the horse to the arena to the rider.

11. A parent/staff can wait in their vehicle or wait in the balcony one person per bench keeping social distancing in place.  The lounge will continue to be closed since we are not able to ensure proper distancing in that area with everyone coming and going for sessions and there isn’t proper ventilation.  If you are in the loft, please remember to be quiet.  Noises above the horses' heads can startle them.

12. Riders will be taken back to the patio after their session has finished.

13. We understand there can be sensory issues involved with the masks.  If riders need a break, please tell the instructor.  The rider will be taken back to the patio.  Masks and gloves will not be taken off and riding continues.

14. Sessions will continue to be extended to ten minutes to allow for disinfecting.  For example, if your start time was at 6:05, it will now be 6:10 or if you were at 12:15 it will now be 12:20.

15. We are still making our way through make-up sessions while we were closed.  We will forego the 30-day make-up time limit at this point.  Kellie is contacting families to schedule make-up times.  This process has taken several months to complete with limited class sizes so please be patient and considerate.

16. The locked payment box is located in the hall for easy access to put checks in or they can be mailed to 6659 Jasmine Court North, Stillwater, MN 55082 or we are set up with Venmo (St. Croix Trail Blazers) for electronic payments.  Envelopes have also been provided for cash payments.  Please make sure the envelope is labeled with the rider’s name.

17. As hard as it is not to give Tigger, Boo, and Roo attention, please do not pick them up and pet them to protect them from Covid-19 also.