About Us
Hey guys! Mark and Stephanie Necessary here! We are a husband and wife team dedicated to the mission here at Daisy Clipper Farms. We’ve been married for over twenty years and have two sons who actively serve in the US military. Our family relocated to Pickens in the upstate of South Carolina in 2016 where we began building a small family horse farm. For the first few years, in our blissful ignorance, we bounced along on quarter horses. In 2020, we joined a local saddle club and we bounced for ten miles behind gaited horses at our first club ride and quickly vowed we’d never do THAT again! The club’s president rode a Rocky Mountain mare named Mercy. That girl was smooth as glass, hit a lick, and never seemed to tire. We were smitten with the breed! Shortly thereafter, we found our first Rocky mare, Riddles Mocha, and haven’t looked back since.
We are very active members of our local saddle club where we serve as club officers. Our horses participate in so many wonderful experiences through the Pendleton Area Saddle Club. We camp with the club monthly all over the southeast and we participate in a variety of other activities, including working with a local special needs population. As avid trail riders with a love of all things related to the Rocky Mountain horse, we are always looking for new horsey opportunities. Some of our latest endeavors include joining the Southern States Rocky Mountain Horse Club and participating in both the versatility and trail programs with the RMHA. We are also active members of a mounted search and rescue team headed up by the local sheriff’s office and several of our horses are certified for search and rescue.
About Our Training
Here at Daisy Clipper Farms, we have two goals. First, to spread our love for the Rocky Mountain Horse breed. Second, to train the best damn trail horses we possibly can. We value creating a trail horse that is sure-footed, confident, and comfortable - a true partner for the woods.
We understand there are so many different approaches to handling and training horses and we have learned something valuable from a variety of approaches. We ultimately believe that natural horsemanship techniques with a solid foundation of groundwork help to create a safe, trustworthy trail partner. Our foals are handled from the day they are born and exposed to age-appropriate training until they are put under saddle around the age of three. Once our horses go under saddle, they begin their journey to becoming phenomenal trail mounts.
Here at Daisy Clipper Farms, we do not use artificial aids or foot-trimming techniques in an effort to expediate gait training or force a horse into movements its body isn’t developed for yet. Our horses are barefoot and their feet are trimmed for the conformation of the horse. We focus on muscle development, balanced collection, and hind-end propulsion to develop a gait that is comfortable for both the rider and the horse. The RMHA breed standards clearly state that a Rocky Mountain horse “moves the feet with minimal ground clearance and minimal knee and hock action providing an ambling gait that glides forward. Because the gait does not waste motion, it enables the horse to travel long distances with minimal tiring.” This is the gait we train for.
We believe in exposure - lots of it and all types of it. Our horses are exposed to everything from gunfire to bikes, from bridges to river fords, from cows to dogs, and all sorts of ‘scary’ things like tarps, umbrellas, maps, and ponchos. We want our horses to be confident - in themselves and in us as their leaders. After all, when you’re on the trail - there’s nothing more important than a safe, confident mount - one you know you can trust. That’s what we train for here at Daisy Clipper Farms.
