TrueBlue Farm is a small family business in every sense. Mother and daughter, Ginger and Caroline Dannemiller, and partners in the 79-acre boarding, training, schooling and educational event facility. They are master multi-taskers who demand the same of their stable equipment and materials.
Caroline is the head trainer and rider, using her experience as a top young eventer and member of University of Kentucky’s 2021 National Championship Eventing Team. Ginger covers most of the administrative side. Together, they handle all aspects of horse and farm care with the help of a few clients who work off some of their fees.
They’re big fans of Airlite cardboard bedding because it works as hard, and multitasks as well, as they do.
Respiratory Health
Ginger and Caroline first encountered Airlite dust-free bedding when it was displayed at an eventing competition several years ago. They did not own their own farm then but tucked the idea away.
Airlite’s dust-free benefits resurfaced as they planned the care of a talented young horse who underwent tie-back surgery. This common procedure is required when one or both arytenoid cartilages in the horse’s throat do not automatically retract when they breathe.
In solving one problem, the procedure can create another because the horse becomes more vulnerable to inhaled dust and other particles. These can cause irritation, inflammation and excess mucus in the respiratory tract.
“We wanted to do everything we could to keep his environment as dust-free as possible,” Caroline explains. The biggest sources of respirable dust in the stable are hay and bedding. So, they started steaming the now 6-year-old Thoroughbred’s hay and using Airlite bedding in his stall.
That was two years ago. The TrueBlue crew have been loyal Airlite users ever since thanks to its many benefits.
Absorption & Ammonia
Initially, they just used Airlite for that young Thoroughbred, and continued with traditional pine shavings in the rest of the barn’s 11 stalls.
“That’s when we realized how much bedding we were wasting,” Caroline recalls. “Airlite absorbs so much better than traditional pine shavings, so the stalls stay cleaner and smell better.”
Made of pre-consumer cardboard, Airlite is up to 5X as absorbent as wood shavings, and it neutralizes ammonia odors that can harm horse and human respiratory systems.
“It’s a night and day difference,” says Caroline. Earlier this year, a brief supply shortfall required TrueBlue Farm to use pine shavings for a few weeks. “We hated it!” the partners assert.
Airlite has a unique ability to maintain a dry top layer of bedding. “You can barely see a pee spot because the urine goes straight to the bottom and the top layer stays dry,” Caroline explains.
Its loft provides cushion and comfort to TrueBlue’s horses. Horses must be comfortable to lie down and most of TrueBlue’s residents do that a lot. “There’s a lot of napping going on around here,” Caroline notes.
Cleaner Stalls & Horses
Cleaner stalls equal cleaner horses. Airlite pieces typically don’t stick to a horse’s coat or tail, and they don’t get stirred up by airflow from a breeze or gentle fan. TrueBlue Farm was designed for good ventilation because that’s a key to healthy barn air quality. “Normally we have a nice breeze, and with pine shavings, those pieces would blow all over the place, making things messy all the time,” Ginger comments. “Airlite mostly stays put.”
“It may look cute when a horse’s tail is full of shavings, but it’s not so cute when you have to pick them all out,” Caroline adds.
Less Labor & Time
Daily mucking is notably faster with Airlite. Once they learned the tricks to finding and removing saturated clumps of bedding, most stalls take about 5 minutes each to clean. Messier residents might require just a few more minutes.
Airlite’s structural durability factors into its easy maintenance. The material does not break down to dust, which means less wasted bedding and less time lugging it to the muck heap and off the property.
Cross-Country, Compost & Kitties
Airlite bedding multi-tasks beyond the barn. Two years of spreading used bedding on the property’s cross-country tracks and conditioning trails has helped create excellent riding surfaces, Ginger and Caroline explain. “We spread it on the fields every day. Especially when we’ve had droughts, our footing has been very good quality and we think it’s because Airlite retains moisture so well.”
The soiled bedding has helped Ginger’s new garden, too. The cardboard pieces help aerate the soil and achieve a neutral pH balance to support thriving plants. When areas of grass at the farm need re-seeding, Ginger reports great success with mixing seeds and used Airlite bedding.
“We use it as kitty litter, too!” Ginger shares. “It’s not as messy and the cats don’t scatter it around with their paws. And, when it’s done, it goes out in the field with the horse’s used bedding!”
Full With a Wait List
TrueBlue Farm is home to 22 horses, which makes them full with a wait-list. Committed to excellent care and detailed attention to all, the TrueBlue Farm partners maintain a head count which makes that manageable.
Half the horses are owned by Caroline’s training clients and the other half are TrueBlue owned, mostly young horses she’s developing. Well-bred Thoroughbreds are plentiful in their Lexington area and Caroline and Ginger share a passion for helping them determine an ideal second career.
“We love the versatility and variety of the breed,” Caroline notes. One of their 6-year-olds seems on track for an FEI eventing career, while another is a quiet Steady Eddy giving beginner up-down lessons. “We love working together to figure out what each Thoroughbred will most enjoy and be good at in their next career,” Ginger adds.
A frequent contender in the US Eventing Association’s Young Event Horse program, Caroline is establishing herself as a young professional with a special gift with young horses. She’s excelling in dressage, too, competing at 4th level with one horse. She is pursuing her US Dressage Federation silver medal, including competing at the upcoming USDF Region 2 Championships in mid-September.
Equestrian Education Hub
TrueBlue Farm is becoming a hub of equestrian education. This includes frequent clinics and cross-country schooling opportunities that will include a brand-new water complex. USDF Gold Medalist Michael Ippolito teaches regularly, including a clinic August 18 – 20.
The Dannemillers are excited about next summer’s plans to host the Keeneland Pony Club Summer Camp and possibly a US Eventing Area VIII Young Rider camp. Combined Training and Young Event Horse hosting is a likely possibility in the future.
Ginger and Caroline enjoy sharing their facility. That includes sharing the stable management products and practices that help them succeed and Airlite dust-free bedding ranks high on that list of recommendations.
Visit TrueBlue Farm for more information.
