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Editor’s Note: This feature originally ran in the March/April 2025 edition of the Valley Living magazine, a publication produced bi-monthly by the Valley Times News. If you would like to pick up a copy of the Valley Living magazine, please visit our office at 4002 20th Ave Suite E in Valley.

By: Charlotte Reames

Rodeo athletes are performers, and the arena is their stage. Ginger Day at Green Gables Stable is the coach who teaches those performers how to take their first bow. Day started with her own two daughters, the oldest of whom—Isabelle McDonald—recently became a world champion in the sport.

Green Gables Stables in Valley, Alabama, first opened its doors nearly 25 years ago. Originally, the idyllic green pastures tucked into the wooded area were used primarily for horse boarding and trail rides.

Today, the business has grown. They still offer horse boarding but also birthday parties, summer camp, trail rides, and, of course, rodeo event lessons.

Day and her daughters learned about community service from her grandfather Bill Hayes, a well-known local business owner. Hayes Grocery/Hardware store in Valley faithfully served the community for decades. After the Walmart opened next door, Hayes closed up shop, but Day never forgot the legacy her grandfather left behind.

Day began the business after Hayes left his home to her in his will. The 170-year-old house sits on around 200 acres of land, surrounded by nine horse pastures.

Trailing the house and nearest pasture is a rock wall that transports visitors to a European countryside or perhaps the fictional island town from which the stable gets its name. The rock wall, dappled with centuries of moss, was built at the same time as the house in 1852.

A youth mentorship program in college sparked the idea for the trail rides. Day decided the land would be an ideal place to continue that. However, with only one hay field and a lot of trees, it took some work to slowly but surely develop all of the pastures, barns and fencing that can be seen there today.

“There was actually a start, and we just put up the fencing around that [hay field], but all the rest of the pastures, we had to make from scratch,” Day said.

When it came time to name the business, the perfect name seemed to fall into Day’s lap in the form of the plucky young orphan named Anne.

“That was my favorite book as a child,” Day said. When the 1985 film came out, she fell in love with that, too. “…My grandparents, they went to the location where that was filmed and brought me back a picture of the house.”

In her wonder, Day realized that the house she grew up in looked just like the one from her favorite movie. Day, whose middle name is Anne, became the Anne of Green Gables Stables in Valley, Alabama.

Over the years, boarding horses became more of a luxury. When the 2008 economic crash hit, there was less demand for it. That’s when Day began offering birthday party services, providing rental inflatables, pony parties and face painting. They also started the lessons and trail rides.

Today, Green Gables Stables gives lessons to 25 students who work the rodeo circuit. The kids learn everything from barrel pulls and goat tying to breakaway ribbon roping.

“These kids, you know, you just want to see them smiling and having a good time and staying out of trouble too, you know,” Day said. “I think if you can start them young and keep them going through the teenage years, doing something passionate like this, you keep them in a positive direction.”

Day and McDonald know that a lot more time, work and expenses go into rodeoing than meets the eye. From using the right saddle to taking care of one’s horse, the work starts at dawn and doesn’t end until dusk.

Finding a horse that can compete in rodeo events is another battle altogether. Horses used for rodeo events are more expensive than others. On top of that, they need to be transported in trailers and many competitors travel to rodeo competitions in RVs so that they can stay overnight.

In addition to the expense, the sport is just as physically demanding as any other. To be safe on their horse, competitors need to have a lot of training and develop a good bond with them.

Though it is a physical sport, McDonald said rodeoing in some ways is like being in the theatre.

“They’re getting on stage in front of thousands of people. It’s the same thing for us,” McDonald said. “The arena’s our stage, and we’re out in front of thousands of people we don’t know, and one little thing can humiliate you, and you just have to be able to take that and keep going.”

However, according to the experts at Green Gables Stables, it’s on those days when you fail that teach you the most. Kids who rodeo have learned life lessons that build endurance and character.

“I think rodeoing, it [takes] a kid that has a lot of try, a lot of want. They can’t have any ‘give up’ in them because this is a very humbling sport,” Day agreed. “When you’re on top, the next day you can be on bottom. And so I definitely think that it sets you up for life because if you can rodeo, you can definitely succeed in life.”

“You gotta be able to take that losing before you can take that winning,” McDonald said.

In other words, the life of a rodeo competitor is not for the faint of heart — and that starts all the way at the beginning before you’ve even left the stables. So what does a day in the life at the stables look like?

“Well, we have to wake up every morning and then get all the horses fed. And weather permitting, we get to do lessons after that,” Day said.

Morning lessons are reserved for the homeschooled kids. About 10 kids attend, doing several chores around the barn and pasture. At 4 p.m., the afterschool programs at Green Gables Stable begin.

“Then on the weekends, we haul all the kids and do rodeos, whatever it may be,” Day said. Even when her students aren’t going to rodeos, McDonald often is. “So if we’re not hauling a kid, I’m still hauling one. The day never ends. If it rains, it is the only day we get a day off.”

As she got older, McDonald joined the family business, helping out with riding and rodeo lessons.

Inspired by one of their longtime student’s lessons, Day’s daughters created a therapeutic riding structure designed for people with disabilities as part of a 4-H project. The goal was to build something that was sustainable and a service to the community. They still use the structure for some lessons.

Years of hard work have certainly paid off for the family. In 2024, McDonald won a world title in barrel racing in a rodeo competition, the Southern Professional Rodeo Association (SPRA). As a world champion, she achieved the highest honor possible in that competition.

“It’s definitely satisfying because we work really hard for this,” Day said.

McDonald and her rodeoing partner, Gus, hope to continue competing in adult rodeo competitions and eventually compete in the NFR, the premier championship rodeo of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association.

“We like to succeed. We’re always striving for first and usually, that works out pretty well,” Day said. “… That’s encouraging, and any kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is encouraging.”