Inside Feather River College’s Equine Studies Program
Claire Guynes is living the dream at Feather River College in Quincy.
As an agriculture instructional assistant in the Agriculture and Equine Studies program, she spends nearly 90 percent of her day outdoors, working in the college’s one-of-a-kind horse breeding, training, and boarding facility. For someone who grew up riding and has her own personal horses, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Whatever the weather, she’s out there – and spring is especially busy when breeding season is in full swing. She starts her days at 7:30 a.m., tending to newborns and caring for broodmares. “That’s when we ensure they’re doing well and thriving,” she said.
By 8 a.m., she’s in the arena assisting in a colt‑starting class, helping students saddle up two‑year‑old horses for their very first rides.
In the afternoon once she has completed teaching her courses, she oversees boarded horses, tends to other resident horses, and supervises student employees/interns – many of whom work in exchange for boarding credits, reducing their expenses while gaining hands-on experience.
The day doesn’t always end there. “I am no stranger to midnight foal watch phone calls or emergencies,” she said. “A lot of the time it’s early morning, late night, or weekend care. It’s all part of keeping eyes on the horses.”
Guynes knows the work well. She graduated from the college in 2021 with both an associate degree in Equine Studies and General Agriculture and a bachelor’s degree in Equine and Ranch Management – the only four-year program of its kind offered at a California community college.
She quickly stepped into a teaching role and now helps manage the same facility where she once learned. “It’s everything I could have dreamed of,” she said. “Being able to manage and operate the breeding facility, oversee the student employees, and be super hands‑on in all the classes I got so much out of during my time at Feather River.”
Laying the Groundwork for Success
Thanks to ongoing support from the Strong Workforce Program, Feather River College has upgraded its facilities and increased teaching capacity – most recently with the Embedded Student Tutor program, which places experienced students inside high-enrollment classes like colt starting which has been at 100% capacity over the past five years, often with students on a waiting list.
That demand reflects what makes the program unique: the opportunity to learn inside a fully operational equine facility.
“We teach students everything from learning about intravenous/intramuscular vaccines, adjusting feed rations, to administering medication properly, to wrapping legs for various injuries or maintenance,” said Guynes. “They gain so much knowledge that upon graduation, they can go work anywhere in the industry.”
That environment is exactly what drew graduating senior Sheyanne Houck to the program. Having worked with horses since she was 13, she was initially torn between entering the workforce or pursuing a degree first. “Feather River College had the best of both worlds,” she said. “It had all the hands-on experiences I was looking for and a bachelor’s degree on top of it.”
Despite already having years of experience with horses, she said staying open to learning has created opportunities she hadn’t expected. Through the program, she competed on a collegiate colt-starting team at the Idaho Horse Expo – where students had just three days to take untouched horses and ride a pattern in competition – and traveled to Arizona to prepare a school horse for sale at Art of the Cowgirl, a prominent event for cowgirls from all over the country. “To me, those were major, career-changing events. I never would have gotten those opportunities if I hadn’t come here,” she said.
As she wraps up her final semester, Houck has her sights set on what comes next. She spent the past year interning with cow horse trainers in San Luis Obispo County and is excited about where her life will take her. “Coming to this college has probably been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life,” she said. “So when you get here, just give it your all and you’ll get awesome opportunities back.”
For Guynes, moments like Houck’s are what make the job worthwhile — not just the skills students leave with, but the confidence they develop along the way. “It’s very rewarding to be a part of their educational journey,” she said, “and see the great things they go on to accomplish.”