Building Comfort with Cover-All

At a very early age, Daryl Olson knew what he wanted to do. His love for horses began while growing up in Redwater, Alberta, and by the tender age of 10 he had trained his first horse. More than three decades later, Olson continues this passion and now owns and operates Riverside Ranch & Equestrian Center. “You never stop learning about and learning from horses,” says Olson. “In my youth, I learned a lot from a horse trainer who was also a war hero; he was a real humble gentleman who had a quiet way with horses. He recognized that I had good hands and a good way with horses.”

In 1998, Olson established Riverside Ranch on a prime quarter section of land located just five minutes outside the city of Saskatoon. His reputation as a skilled horse trainer and Certified Equine Dentist drew the attention of horse enthusiasts from all over Saskatchewan as well as parts of Alberta. “We have hundreds of clients that we work with; word of mouth is our best form of advertising,” says Olson. “If you handle people’s horses real well, they tell other people and the business builds from there.”

As the Riverside Ranch clientele grew, Olson identified the need for a suitable indoor training arena. “The weather in this part of the country can be very severe. When you combine the freezing temperatures and wind chill, our winters can be as cold as -50 degrees Celsius. I knew that if I wanted to train horses year-round, I would need an indoor arena.

”Riverside Ranch chose a Cover-All® indoor arena because the building provides the most natural setting in every weather extreme. “Since we’ve had the building we’ve been able to comfortably train year round. The natural light inside the building is tremendous, horses are not afraid to go into this building and they rarely want to leave. The horses can be worked a lot longer which means we can be more competitive in the show-ring. The environment is so natural, horses and riders can relax in here and enjoy riding out of the elements.” The unique properties of Cover-All’s DuraWeave® fabric allows for reduced temperature fluctuations which moderates the interior temperature. “In the summer, we can ride in the building and not have the sun beating down on us and during the winter, we’re protected from the cold winds and the footing remains consistent. Training can be very stressful on a horse and we want to reduce all the stresses we can. Having this building has greatly reduced stress on all our horses. Horses are social creatures, when you ride a horse you’re forming a partnership, the more natural the environment the better the relationship,” says Olson.

The Riverside Ranch Cover-All® riding arena is 72’ wide x 200’ long. “Before 1998, we owned our own boarding facility at a different location and we used to train in a metal building. The difference between our old metal building and the Cover-All building is night and day. The metal building was dark and noisy; in the Cover-All building the environment is peaceful and quiet and we never have to turn the lights on during the day. Another reason we chose Cover-All was because it’s also re-locatable. We are on leased land so if we need to re-locate the building, we can,” says Olson. “The Cover-All building is the perfect building for horse and rider.”