About Us:
Let us tell you our stories.
Kimberly Carter:
Writer - Farmer - Coach
First and foremost, Kim is a writer and you can find her work at Stable Roots on Substack.
Kim Carter is a Level 2 EquineFlow practitioner, a Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI), a somatic practitioner based in the Compassion Process, and an ARIA Level III hunt seat instructor. She is also a writer and you can find all her latest articles and more about her coaching practice here. The paths we take from hardship to transformation is the mission that fuels Kim’s work from the barn to the page.
For several decades, Kim served on the board of her family company, Communications Service Center, founded by her grandfather in 1950. Kim now serves on the board of Latigo Cowboy Church in Landrum.
Kim grew up riding and showing in the traditional hunter/jumper world in upstate South Carolina. Horses were always her safe place, barns her salvation through a hard childhood. She wrote stories focused on these barns from a young age and had great early success as a writer. Kim attended the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and the Fine Arts Center in Greenville and won numerous poetry prizes, including the coveted Young Arts award. She attended Wofford College on a full scholarship where she studied English and Art History, completing a novella and continuing to publish. She graduated with honors and quickly built a career as a journalist covering the arts and food in SC while also working for an upstate gallery and The Greenville Museum.
With her career path set, Kim thought she was doing everything right until panic disorder left her virtually housebound at the turn of the millennia. Horses, again, became Kim’s salvation. She took a year off to write a book and began cleaning stalls for a large Quarter Horse operation. The hours in the barn quickly led to the purchase of a young horse named Max who pushed her to move past the prison of her fears into a sense of her own power and transformation.
The book she planned to write turned into Bramblewood Stables — a story that continues to write itself every single day.
Twenty years later, Max is still doing the same work for her and many others who come to Bramblewood Stables, to explore the pull that calls us to transform our lives through horse power. Mindset coaching is a natural extension of the work Bramblewood does daily. Small, private sessions draw on the beauty of the natural wold surrounding the stables and give clients a safe place to delve deep, manifest goals, and draw on their strengths to create a balanced way of being.
Visit Kim’s personal site at kimberly-carter.com
Sarah Farris:
Instructor/Trainer
Sarah is native of Virginia horse country, in the suburbs of DC, where she had her first riding experience at the legendary Jane Marshall Dillon Junior Equitation School in Vienna. Graduating with a BA in Theater Arts from Virginia Tech, Sarah also achieved minors in Vocal Performance and English. She came to South Carolina in 2000 to study for an additional BA in Music Education at Converse College.
Sarah joined the Bramblewood Stables family in 2007, finally finding the time to explore her lifelong fascination with horses. She purchased her first mount, Bella, a Dutch cross out of a USDF Horse of the Year, and continued her education as a boarder and student while beginning her career as a dog trainer. When Bella was sold to the perfect dressage home, Sarah found herself at a crossroads that led to her combining all of her studies into one field: the retraining of our Gypsy-cross mare, Matilda. The success of that match led to Sarah joining the Bramblewood team as co-trainer.
Currently working toward her certification in Rider Biomechanics, Sarah’s knowledge of teaching theory gives her students a breadth of understanding rarely found in traditional riding lessons. Having experienced a childhood filled with the chronic pain of Juvenile Arthritis, Sarah understands the mind/ body connection and gives her riders new and inventive ways of translating their movements to the horse. Incorporating yoga and breath work, Sarah’s multi-disciplinary approach is on the forefront of innovative trends in the equine industry.
Sarah’s philosophy of learning to ride includes “slow and steady” and “safety first.” In fact, her true obsession is ground work and, if she could, she would convince everyone to spend weeks, months or years working their horses from the ground, bonding and learning their behaviors before attempting serious work in the saddle.
You can learn more about Sarah at her blog: http://thematildaproject.blogspot.com/
Tricia Arthur
Instructor/Trainer
Tricia was born in Vermillion, South Dakota, but considers Brookings SD her hometown. She has loved horses since she knew what they were. She spent her childhood reading about horses, taking occasional lessons, and looking forward to summers at her Grandpa’s farm (with a pony!). At sixteen she finally got her own horse, and spent the next twenty-six years learning from the smartest mare ever.
She attended William Woods University and University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and holds a bachelors and a masters in History, and a bachelors in Equestrian Science. Tricia began teaching and training horses while in graduate school. After school she moved to Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania with her friend and dressage guru, Trish Brosious. Peaceful Valley Stables was the site of her first full-time teaching job, and she taught there three years before being offered a position at Manito Equestrian in Allentown PA. During her time in Pennsylvania she discovered the American Riding Instructors Association, and was certified level II in hunt seat, dressage, and recreational riding.
In 2000 she was offered a position with Greenville County Recreation District as Head Instructor at Riverbend. She enjoyed six years of teaching there before she retired to act as Mom-in-residence for her stepson. Twin girls (Helen and Rose) born in 2007 kept her out of teaching until this year.
In 2008 the Arthur family moved to their current residence, Recalcitrant Acres. Her wonderful husband Don built her a barn, pastures, and a riding arena, so she was able to keep her horses and continue to ride. The herd went through several changes and eventually grew from two to four, so every member of the Arthur family now has their own horse.
Tricia is the owner of Plainspoken Dressage and is thrilled to be back at her favorite occupation, and is grateful to Kim and Bramblewood Stables for the opportunity. She is already in love with all the school horses.
Michelle Higdon
Instructor/Trainer
Michelle is a middle school librarian by day and she brings her love of students and children to her riding lessons. Before becoming a librarian, Michelle was a sixth and seventh grade teacher. She very much enjoys getting to know her student and connecting with them to build a relationship. Michelle believes that relationships and connection are the key to a successful and enjoyable riding lesson - and not just the relationship between rider and horse. Michelle believes that it is a triangle partnership - instructor, rider, and horse. Michelle is excited to work with Bramblewood’s young students to encourage them to dig deeper into connections with their horse, discover more about themselves, and have fun. She is constantly learning more about horses, riding, and connection work and her passion is being a positive influence on her students.
Michelle has spent pretty much her whole life in the Greer/Taylors area of South Carolina and is happy to call this part of the US home. While in high school, Michelle got into horses and became a “horse girl” for life. Once she went off to college, other things took precedence and Michelle spent 9 years volunteering and working as a Mobile Adoptions Coordinator at Greenville County Animal Care. Even though horses weren’t a main focus of her life during her 20s, her passion for animals was still front and center. But the call remained strong and eventually Michelle found her way back to her first love — horses.
Bramblewood’s philosophy of building connections with horses and focusing on the relationship rather than the end goal of x-y-z was intriguing to Michelle and she knew Bramblewood was the place she wanted to be. Indeed, from the first minute she set foot on the property for a Wednesday Workshop, she was hooked.
Michelle loves to utilize ideas of groundwork and connection work to build a relationship with the horse before stepping a foot in the stirrup. She is also a student of the Masterson Method and enjoys putting equine bodywork skills to use at the barn and in lessons to improve the horse’s mental state so that her students and the horse are connected on a deeper level.
Michelle is so glad to be a riding instructor at her home away from home at Bramblewood Stables.
Lakin Khamis
Instructor/Trainer
Lakin moved to the upstate of South Carolina in 2020, after calling Indiana her home for 25 years. She was a horse-obsessed little girl and never outgrew her love of horses. Lakin began taking lessons at the age of 8 at an English Eventing Stable in Greenwood, IN, Dan Hobyn Stables. Her time at this barn solidified her love for horses and she knew she had to have one of her own one day. At the age of 13, she changed disciplines and began riding Western at a family friend’s farm. It was here that she met her “heart-horse”, April, and owned her for 15 years.
Lakin attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Occupational Health and a Bachelor of Environmental Science Degree in Environmental Health. While she was in college, she donated April to Mourning Dove Therapeutic Riding in Zionsville, IN. After college, Lakin began volunteering at Mourning Dove and found a new love of teaching students to ride horses and create relationships with them. In 2019, she went through the PATH, Intl. Mentorship Program under Elizabeth Coit to become a Registered Therapeutic Riding Instructor.
Lakin believes that the foundation to create a lasting relationship with a horse starts with time spent with them on the ground. She considers the time spent grooming and performing ground-work is invaluable and it allows the horse to trust the person working with them.
Lakin is excited to work with students of all different ages and experience at Bramblewood. She hopes to help her students discover more about themselves and their abilities and have fun while doing so.
The Farm.
Bramblewood Stables was brought together by serendipity. Lots of websites give stock responses and bios but anyone who has spent a lot of time with us knows, we do things a little differently at Bramblewood. This farm exists because of moments that cannot be replicated.
Bramblewood has become what it is today from hard work, incredible clients, wonderful friends and a good dose of chance and divine intervention.
On this page you will find a lot of standard answers to your questions about our background and experience, but we hope that as you click to the next page you'll leave with something more - a feeling for the spirit of our farm. For many people, Bramblewood is a refuge. We're not just instructors, trainers and apprentices, we're caretakers of a place that feeds the soul. We cannot express enough gratitude to Foxcroft's (as this facility was known for years) owners. In another of those serendipitous moments, they found us the day that we were trying to reach them to ask about taking the place. We are grateful beyond measure.
