It's a covert operation on a Callaway County farm.

11-year-old Lashawnda Elliot and 11-year-old Starr McLaurin don't need a hoop for a game of horse.

"We throw them over the horse to get them used to different kind of noises and if they get used to that, they can get used to anything," Starr said. 

Program founder Sue Crane said the program is not about winning.

"This program is not about going out and buying the most expensive horse and entering it in shows and winning blue ribbons. It's not what we do," Crane said.

Lashawnda said she has learned a lot from the program.

"When I first started working with my horse, I wasn't that patient. And when I got my horse I learned if I'm patient with my horse, he'll be patient with me," Lashawnda said.

The girls use tarps, balls and braiding to learn what it's was like to be in the horse's shoes. The hope is those skills will allow them to face their own hurdles.

"You're learning empathy because you're stepping into another creature's shoes. Horse shoes this time, and learning to get outside of yourself and it's not always about you," Crane said

Starr agreed.  "Sometimes you have to think of other things before you think of yourself," she said.

Over four months, these girls braided and bonded with their horses, knowing in the end that they'd have to let go.

Starr has no regrets. "Just that I love them," she said.

They're training the horses so someone will adopt them.

So the young spirit riders saddled up to travel to Texas. There, they showed judges what their animals could do. And with heavy hearts, they put Reece and Thunder up for adoption. But what the girls didn't know was the program's founder was working undercover.

So in the end, Crane adopted the horses and brought them back to Missouri.

The Spirit Riders Program chose youth participants from Columbia's Granny's House, which is a program for inner city Columbia youth.