Let me know what you think. Also, there are a few tweaks to the website. I hope all is working fine!
Karen
June is here
Well June is here for sure! Just came home from the first Morton Farm show with a whole handful of first time show riders! What fun, everyone looked and rode well. Started off looking like rain, but I had no idea that Bob held so strong with the rain Gods, he told me there will not be any rain during the show, he was right!
Catching up
I am finding it hard to stay on top of the journal if you can’t already tell. Last entry March, and then before then, well, too long between entries. The great part is that it is completely due to a busy farm, which means a healthy, successful farm which is more than I even had ever hoped for. Come to think of it, when I started this farm in October of 1990, and then moved it up here opening in October of 1998 I had no idea of what I was getting myself into. I guess I have been thinking about starting the farm a lot recently as it seems that we have had a wave of some very precious people returning to the farm. I think this is the highest form of compliment, having the kids that left for college, jobs, or a different atmosphere still in horses, just come back and want to stay a part of us. I want to shout huge welcome HOME’S to you girls AND a huge welcome to the farm to Elisabeth Parent. She comes back as a trainer, which is probably the neatest thing. As a super part of the kids during her time here, then a hard worker to help support her horse and now, some 7 years after she left, she has come back as a trainer! She has so many things to share with us, lots of great experiences that bring her home more skilled and yet with still the same smiling face and terrific work ethic to us again. Just yesterday Bob was working in the aisle and heard a familiar voice in the aisle, and had to get up from fixing the hydrant, and go see if it was true, his face said so clearly is this really who I think it is. Jenny said “Yep it is me!” We are so happy to know that when “our” girls leave us, we will see them again! That says so much about the farm itself too.
Show season is in full swing now, and the farm is in true form performing well wherever we go. The girls and horses have been competing since January at Stoneleigh Burnham School pretty much monthly, a few are up for end of season awards, and all have had good experiences there. Then we spent Mother’s Day weekend at GMHA in the pouring rain on Sat and the gale force winds and snow!! By 9 am on Sunday morning of Mother’s Day I had 8 rides completed, and 4 girls with blue ribbons! Pretty fabulous Mother’s Day if you ask me!! The day continued like that from there. Usually CVDA is our first show and so we have much more show nerves, but this year most of the kids were ready to get right down to work and show what they have been working so hard on all winter. When I had a moment to walk through the barn my heart sang with all of the hustle and bustle of the show as well as the awards the riders won, the pure team atmosphere, and seeing all of the smiling faces as I went over their tests with them. I think we are all approaching this show season with good readiness, and attitudes.
On the home front people will notice the steady flow of youngsters coming in for training. What a fun yet busy thing. I am enjoying the training horses immensely, I just love the feeling of riding a horse who doesn’t understand clearly what I want one day, put it through a few exercises and then with in days have a completely new, and more educated animal. On top of that the sheer joy in seeing a young horse start to develop new muscles is so fun. It really proves that this sport enhances what the horse is born with. It is such a satisfying feeling when an owner comes to see their horse and looks with surprised eyes on their animal and its muscles and gleam!
Summer camp is in full preparation swing. Joyce and I have meetings and things in the works regularly by now, and the applications are rolling in! We have some great additions to the program that should continue to make it better and better. It is time to start to arrange CIT placements and make the final plans as we get so close to the beginning of the season! In the mean time we are as always interested in your scrap yarns, pillow cases, old brooms, etc, so bring them in if you like!
Remember that a big part of summer is leasing, if your rider wants to have more time to practice and show, see me about getting involved in summer leasing. Another part of getting ready for summer is arranging the summer schedule. Please talk to your trainer about the schedules for the summer and when is the best time for you or your rider to have lessons. There will be some changes made to the schedule, for example, we are trying to make Sunday a day of rest at the farm, giving the horses the full day off, and keeping things quiet with low activity so that they can have a day to just be horses.
I think that catches most of you up, as usual, please email me with questions and I will see you in the aisle!
Heidi
Plans for summer
So when one is THIS far behind in journal writing does one try to catch up? Or do we just go from here? There are a lot of things that I really should catch you up on, and then again there are so many things coming up does anyone really want to read a novel to get to the close at hand stuff. My gut says let the winter be history and bring on the spring.
Can you imagine I could say here, just wait and see what cool and exciting things we have to come this year? I can say that, we are deep in the planning of the summer and all of the good things that come with it. I have met with Joyce, we have our details for summer camp with super week themes planned, and great instructors, as well as such fun horses and ponies. We have already been to our first show of the season, shall I mention the riders came home with scores in the high 60′s, and we are preparing for our next show in three weeks at the same location, The Stonleigh Burnham School in Greenfield, MA. I believe we are taking 9 horses to this one, ranging from intro B through First level. What a fun array. Hopefully, they have enough stalls for us to be comfortable and enjoy the whole day there. Then two weeks later we head back for the first Combined test of the year with the Eventing crew, that will be an adventure for us!! We don’t have any colorful jumps in the indoor, I guess I had better change that one today! We are already working on the Youth Festival, as this year it is a month early in July. This year we are trying to raise some funds to make this more available for the kids. You may have already seen posters around about bake sales and Pampered Chef sales, just wait we have even more up our sleeve. It certainly builds a sense of community for the girls to be responsible for such a thing.
Camp registration is open and we are taking deposits for spots. Shortly we will have the themes posted, so if that makes a difference just keep your eyes peeled. If you send in a registration with a $200 per week deposit before May 1st, you will receive a $25 discount per week. The discount will be taken off of the final payment due on the first day of camp.
We have a very new crew of ponies this year for lessons, showing, leasing, and camp. If you are interested in leasing for the summer just let us know, monthly half leases this year are $275 and most of the horses are available at this time.
We are hoping to get the adult groups involved in some fun this year, as we always hope, we will be sending horses out to trail rides off site. If you want to be involved, let us know and we will schedule things for you. If you are a member of GMHA, you can use their trails, and we are happy to bring horses to GMHA to use. If you are a member, it is no fee to use the site and you can rent a horse and have it shipped to the show grounds for a reasonable fee. This and more will be posted in the viewing room as time goes by. The farm schedule will also be on the web site shortly and with that you can see ideal times as well as less than ideal.
I think this touches on many of the things to come, I will try to be more punctual about writing, but what a task it is to simply get through the winter with over 30 horses, and a full lesson schedule, so please bear with me!
I will see you in the Aisles!!!
Heidi
It’s Fall
Fall is here and cold as ever! The horses are all getting furry, and their blankets are on and getting dirty. We are well into our third mud season of the year, you know the one that follows the July mud season? The October mud season?? Thanks to all who are helping me keep the schoolies safe and happy with daily application of hoof treatments and leg treatments. A little mud can’t stop us!! Along with Fall comes the Annual Beach Ride!!! We are off to the beach on October 24th and then again on November 14. The troops are so excited.
As our show season comes to a close I want to send out HUGE congratulations to both Lexie and Nathalie. They with their horses, Albert and Koda respectively, are recipients of the CVDA Year End High Score Awards!! They will be honored at the annual meeting, and as usual at our farm. I have to say I have many more year end awards that I would love to give, like most changed horse and rider pair from the start of the show season to the end!!! Sarah DeGrasse would get that as she turned her show riding around from green rider who could not always stay in the arena, to seasoned rider who can get some great scores! What about Kate Neumann who thought she was showing Razz at a few shows but then low and behold, ended up on a couple of different horses!! One being Willi and she had some great rides on that little bugger! Same thing happening to Lindsey, all around good sport would have to go to her, spending so much time of the winter on Silky, getting her almost qualified for the Championships and then taking Justin out when Silky needed time off. Actually I could go on and on, all of you have accomplished so much in such short times.
Lessons are off and running in a big way. We have the weekends filled with great riding and tons of fun! All of the horses are getting their fair share of good work teaching all sorts of riding, jumping, and ground work lessons. Please keep an eye out and if you see someone looking a little lost lend a helping hand! We have new students all over the farm, help them become comfortable!
As I look into the indoor I see the kids working hard, starting to work on the winter plans, how do we take a step forward over the winter? What are our goals? Can we go out for a gallop??? This and the next month we will be talking about goals for each and every horse and rider, if you have questions about how to take that next step come find me and I will be very happy to help you. Start thinking about next year, do you want to show? Where? How? Who? Let me help you form a budget for what you are doing, let me know where you want to go so we can start to plug together a calendar. Seems early but we know how time flies!
At the end of October I will be retiring Ronnie. He will be going to a friends house, the same one that has Eagle. If you have some special thoughts of Ronnie please let him know, he understands you know! I have to admit that when Bob and I put him into the pasture across the street today and he pranced around like a colt, and galloped up and down the pasture I rolled my eyes and said should I really??? But I know I am doing the right thing for him, he certainly deserves to be loved and allowed to use his body as he likes. But really, can her really be 21? He will have a great live with my friend, she has always loved him. Welcome to all of the new ponies that I have brought in. One or two may stay as schoolies, but mostly they are here for sale, so if you know anyone needing a pony for Christmas…Hanukkah? A random birthday?? For now, have a great fall, get out side, enjoy the leaves, and the crisp air, smell the fall smells, especially the ones from the kitchen!!
I will see you in the Aisles!
Heidi
End of summer
Hello after such a long time!!! Sorry not to have written until now but my broken arm prevented a ton of things, and then when I got the cast off I just wanted to DO stuff!! So now the summer comes to a close, and we prepare for the academic year again, and look toward the fall. What a summer this was, I have never had a summer where so many people were generally stuck, just spinning wheels and frustrated by things. I have to say I really think it was something “higher power ish.” Just when I thought I was frustrated, I would either chat with a friend or a client, or simply look around at people and realize that in fact I was pretty lucky and man I felt so badly for SO many people! Things just were not “in the stars” for so many of you, I am so sorry for that!! Many of my friends and clients had horrible family things to deal with, I really feel for you guys. Lets hope things change as the school year and regular schedules come to us.
In the barn things were pretty nice. Students were showing successfully, fun to go to shows, and come home with at least one high score of the show award, and sometimes two!! What about my younger crew going to shows and coming home not just with one champion ribbon, but with all of them from the divisions we showed in, way to go!! I have had a lot of fun watching all of the show groups get into their work and really make some impressions. Even more I can’t believe how well all of you work together on show prep night. I have had some very relaxing pre show evenings just because of everyone’s team work. HUGE Kudos to you ALL for that!!! We are planning a couple of last hurrah’s for the late summer and early fall. Anyone who is interested should jump on board with us and go to Morton Farm’s last Equitation show. It is September 19th and I would love to bring any and EVERYONE!! Sally does a great job running those shows, and we have had tons of fun with them. Then anyone who is interested in going to a dressage show either to ride or watch should get together with me and lets do it!! We are sending entries in on Monday August 31, so lets get organized.
On the show topic, HOLY COW NATHALIE!!! When you see that girl give her one heck of a pat on the back for taking her baby Koda to a 1st place win at Lendon’s Youth Festival!!! Not only is that a huge feat in itself, BUT she did it on one of the youngest and least experienced horses at the entire show!!!Not only did they ride well, but she practically memorized the entire two book reading requirements, some of us tried all the way to NY to stump and nothing, she knew it all. The only way to really pin high there is to be in the top after the written. Another written test star was Cora L, great job Cora!!! Scout and Sarah blew away the competition in the Pleasure class, way to go! And Alicia and Cutie were consistent players, just you guys wait, with the power that you got from that Youth Festival you will knock ‘em dead! We had such a great time with all of the activities, and especially with the group of people, what a great time we had!! Thanks all of you for working SO well together, and being so fun. FCRA was certainly a name everyone heard a lot! We were 7th in the tack room competition, out of a TON of fun tack rooms, we were FIRST !!! In the Golf Cart decorating competition!!! YAY DeGrasse family and those of you who decorated it, and also YAY to Julie for having hair that matched!!! And finally, the team came in 6th place over all out of just so many teams, there were something like 250-300 kids at this show, it was great.
Two more topics to go…
What a fabulous Summer Camp we had this year! Thanks a million Joyce Kramer! Every week had a different theme, and ended with a different performance. I could not even tell you what my favorite one was, I am still trying to remember the words to the songs you guys sang!!! How many farms have their own theme songs?? If you did not here them, I have asked Joyce to write some of them down for our soon to be fab summer camp page. I just loved getting to know all of the kids that don’t usually ride at our farm, and I loved how happily they joined in and became part of it, and I also loved the confidence I saw grow in the kids who ride here as they became even stronger members of the farm. I have to also say a HUGE thank you to the horses! They were one heck of a SAFE and yet ACTIVE group of horses!!! They did flat work, they jumped, they trail rode, they got ridden bareback, they vaulted, they taught lunging lessons, and after all of that they got DRESSED UP!!! they got PAINTED!!!!! Really, what a huge group of super willing and super kind animals, I have never ever in my life seen such a team of blessed beasts that will do anything for the kids and for the trainers. I have had many a school string to work with and this group is THE MOST reliable, THE MOST flexible group as a whole. Don’t let that discount the horses who we have had in our past who were so fantastic, they too were blessed beasts and I have loved every one of them, but as a group I can look to any single one of these 16 school horses and call them to duty and they only respond yes!!! Thanks horses, you are THE BEST co workers a person could ask for!! OK, wipe a tear from my eye and get my heart beating back to normal because I have one more topic to cover….
Things to come…
We still have some of our favorite things to look forward to. First of all the shows to come, and almost more importantly, beach rides. I suspect our first Beach Ride will be Saturday, October 24. The tides look perfect for that day, and so I think that will be our first venture out. Please keep an eye out for the sign up. This year, we will be asking for a check when you sign up, so please don’t put your name down with out putting a check in the box, or we will have to cross it out, sorry to be such a stickler but we have a ton of horses who want to go and so there is no reason to reserve spots that can’t actually come for what ever reason. We will be heading out to Hampton at about 8:30 and riding to our hearts content, OK a couple of hours. Then we expect to be home at about 3:30. Fees for the beach ride are $125 if you own your horse, $150 if you half lease, and $175 if you ride a school horse. You have the responsibility of taking care of your tack after your ride, which includes oiling, and washing the sand and salt off of the horse you ride.
We also have some clinics to do. CVDA has a couple of really great clinics coming up, first Arlene “Tuny” Paige is coming to Pirouette farm. She is a great person and a friend of mine so I am excited to put some students in front of her, as well as hopefully a horse, however my dad is visiting that weekend. She is doing a regular dressage clinic and will have some GREAT tips, she is such a fabulous horse woman, and has been to the WEG and the World Cup. Then On October 25 Jerry Shurink is doing a Cavelletti clinic for CVDA. This would be a superior way to get horses working and increasing strength and power. I will for sure be going, and I have already told many of you to try to sign up. CVDA clinics are of high popularity so you MUST get your application post marked on opening day complete with coggins test and all signatures. They typically go to lottery if they are perfect, so cross your fingers. This is something that is equally, if not better when done in group format so don’t be shy!! Sign right up. I will be talking to the board to see if we can make a couple of groups.
As a last thought I wanted to just thank EVERYONE for this summer, for those who have been patient with me through my broken arm, for those who have put forth awesome energy to show both recognized and schooling, for those who have battled what ever they battled this summer and come out on the positive side looking to the future, THANK YOU! Thank you to those who bought horses and gave them great homes! Thank you to those who understood when I sold their favorite horses, and to those who have not found a favorite horse, yet happily ride whom ever they are assigned. AND A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has been working at the farm making these activities possible, and keeping the horses safe and happy and well fed.
OK, One more thing, Good Luck to my Graduated girls, good luck to you all as you go off to College, or to the great Working Student positions that you have gotten, or to the “Real World” Good luck and remember, you are always a part of us, you are always welcome!!! We will miss you but we will always love you!! Enough!
See you in the Aisles!
Heidi
Honesty, respect, and responsibility
June 4, 2009
As school comes to a close and the summer is in full swing (and if you haven’t yet got the gist of things I am really proud of what this farm is doing) I have found myself reflecting a bit on what I really hope to accomplish here at this farm. I was lucky enough to have the Spectator come out and do an article on me that started my brain reflecting on why I do this and what drives me. When I went home and thought about it I thought I should pass along a belief that I think makes this farm unique among farms that I hold near and dear to my heart, and that I sure hope I can pass along to my students. We all know that the reputation of “horse traders” is not a pretty one, close to used car dealers, the buy here pay here type. Well I don’t want to be that type of person, and I don’t want to send kids off to the world with those beliefs. There are three values that I hold dear to my heart, honesty, respect, and responsibility. I wish I could come up with some fantastic acronym for them and just put them like a signature on our shirts, and logo so that we could all strive to be true to these words. If I can send my students out into the horse world knowing that you can operate a successful horse business staying true to these three things I will have made a huge accomplishment, I think they all know this too and so things may be on track. Why not have a life based on these? It isn’t hard to do once you get started, and it sure makes it easy to sleep at night and to walk through each day. Sure, it isn’t easy at first but it IS easy once you start!!
Honesty, why not just say what is true? Do what is true? We are living and dealing with horses who only know how to do that, and we can only ride, and train well if we stay true to them, and ourselves. A horse has no idea what it is to change or stretch the truth. When a human does that the horse has to live up to it and that is impossible when they don’t get the concept. It is the same when a human puts the same expectations on themselves. Be truthful, although I have often lost a sale of a horse because I have said something that the potential buyer did not want to know, and perhaps said more than necessary, the sales I have made have sent horses to really great homes where the people have expectations that are easily met, and the horses can be even more successful than anticipated, and everyone is happy. In sales, I think this is most important. If a buyer asks me if the horse has ever bucked my first answer is of course, it is a horse right? Or how high it has jumped? No need to exaggerate that, it is likely that they can produce a higher jump when they bring it home anyway. What about those uncomfortable situations? Yeah, they are uncomfortable, if I was supposed to work a horse and I did not, or if something happened that I would rather not admit to? Well, at least the owner would know why the horse did not feel so great to them and they would question my training! AND I never have to look over my shoulder.
Respect, well that is a tough one to explain in a way that makes it clear why I feel so strongly about it. I guess I have been so lucky to work with so many great people who have made a huge impact on my life, one very big influence on my life was Larry Cassentti, he and his wife Chris own Chrislar Farm in Rowely MA. Larry shared some important wisdom with me about some of his life experience, and beliefs that always got me thinking. Then one day full of turmoil with family issues I had the thought that I am just a human being who wants to be loved and accepted, and then I realized that that is basically what everyone is, and they go about it in different ways. Then when I had my babies, I realized that we were all babies to someone, and that the emotions I feel toward them is the same as all parents feel toward their children. The fact that everyone just wants to survive and again be accepted socially, and feel joy and love gives me great grounds to feel respectful toward them. I remember the day I realized that we really are very much the same just in different roles of our lives, big huge deal to me. It makes me feel respectful to people when I think that they are just trying to do what they think is right, they may just have different interests or beliefs in what that is. As long as it stays with in the three key words I have to respect them, even if I don’t agree with them.
Responsibility, of course this one is huge! We need to be able to take responsibility for things we do, own them. If we do things that are not things we want to own then why let them happen? If we take responsibility for what we do and own it then we can go back to honesty and live with that too. If you live your life with honesty and someone asks you a question like did you do this? Then it is easy to say yes, MOST OF THE TIME, sometimes someone will ask you a question that is something you are not proud of or feel like it was wrong, but if you own up to it and take responsibility for what you did you can say yes, I did this, and I am or am not proud of it, you can’t be shunned for doing the wrong thing if you are willing to own up to it, you would gain respect from those asking. You might have a consequence if it is not a good or safe thing to do, but you would survive the consequence and you would gain respect from the ones you were dealing with. If we have a responsibility like a pet, how can we not take care of it? We have caged it and taken away its ability to get what it needs, how can we look into the eyes of a pet and just say sorry I don’t feel like taking care of you today, I know you are hungry, or dirty, and I know those feelings are not good ones, but I am not going to do anything about that.
I don’t usually use this column to preach or try to put my feelings on to others, but sometimes I think that if I want to teach people to be good horse men and women I need to go below the surface of the riding part. If you ride with honesty, respect, and responsibility from your core you WILL be a good horseman and a good rider, and you will be the type of rider that your horse can feel safe to have on their back. Stay well EVERYONE, ride well, and live well.
I will see you in the aisles!
Heidi
May brings more than flowers
May 13, 2009
It is hard to believe how fast time can go by! Show season has begun, school is starting to prepare for the summer to come and I am counting down to the beginning of Summer Camp! First off though let me send my congratulations to Nathalie Ferneau and Lexie Mergeurian!! Both girls took home the only two awards offered for juniors at the CVDA show on May 3rd, both were high scores of the day and both really made the farm SO proud. Nathalie was not only high scoring training level rider, but high score of the entire show with a 76%, and Lexie was the highest score of juniors AND adults at all USDF and FEI tests first level and ABOVE!!! Go for it ladies. Not only did we have high scores but we had incredible learning curves. When you see Sarah D just ask her about how well Scout and she changed her outcome from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon! She will let you know that if you want to learn about riding and showing this was a great venue. She and Scout went from having troubles even staying in the arena to qualifying for the YDF!! Way to go kiddo! Kate and Razz got to touch into their first second level test, that is what a winter of hard work will do for you! Lindsey and Silky made their debut, at one point they were warming up on the knoll behind arena 2, and 3 and the sun was on them and they looked almost mystical. Cora and Pekoe were stars, winning their class, Caroline and Winnie knocked ‘em dead and made some drop dead scores as she entered first level for the first time and came out with a 65.6% and a second place! Not bad for her second dressage show!! Kylie was the youngest of the crowd, and MJ was the oldest, great way to go, they came home with ribbons, like everyone else! Kylie may have had the most fun cantering around the big huge “dust bowl” as she has been dreaming of coming to the shows for at least a year. By the way Ladies, yet again you wowed everyone with your impeccable turnout, I was so very proud to be the trainer of each and every one of you BOTH days!
Camp is coming along nicely, filling up reliably, and Joyce and I are making the preparations necessary for the start. It does look like we will have some spots open toward the second half if anyone loves it so much they want to do it again they sure may. It is time to have that meeting I had promised for the CIT hopefuls. I will be emailing those of you who are at the right age to do this with more details. If you are 14 or older and I have not emailed you please let me know, I will get on it right away. Remember, if you want to CIT you need to have done 2 weeks of summer camp at some time in the past, as many years ago as it was, or if you want to do it this year and you have not yet done camp, just sign up with me or email me with that information and we can get you involved right away.
Barn rats will be an important part of this years program. If you are 10-14 years old, or you don’t want to do CIT’s and you do want to be at the farm then you need to talk to me about this! We will have a meeting for Barn rats as well, again I will email you but please email me if you have not heard from me soon!
I want to extend a congratulations to Goldie Dove, our youngest boarder, and her new pony Starlight! You can find Goldie riding or grazing, or even dressing her pony in pink just about every day. Also Congratulations go to Joelle Lang and her lease of Zeke! She is enjoying her non work time at the farm with her own charge getting in a lot of riding time and just flying in the confidence department. I am also so glad to see Amanda Stragnell in the aisles again as she and Buddie have come HOME for a layover between college and her summer job at Vershire’s Camp. Mollie is also HOME, and can be seen riding just about anything she can put a saddle on, YAY! May might bring flowers, but it also brings back MY girls from their new lives at college.
That is all for now, let me know if I am forgetting something, never hesitate to email me with questions.
See you in the aisles!
Heidi
So much to do
So much to do in so little time!!! First things first, We went to our first show of the season and WOW I am so impressed by these kids. Not only did we come home with high score of the show, but we came home with TONS of high scores!!! We also came home having experienced some of the greatest mentoring I have ever seen kid to kid, and some of the most exciting learning from friends kid to kid. The farm is at such a great place, the older girls are setting great horsemanship examples, and the younger crew is taking notice. Beware “big” girls Bob and I will be on the look out for bad examples as we are really noticing the impact of what you guys do.
Second, the schedule, please start to take notice of the schedule being posted as you may be able to find some really fun things that take a spin on learning in a completely different way, example at hand is the Quadrille Clinic.
Another VERY important thing is the meetings about summer options. We need to get you folks in order for your summer. I think I will need to do this in the form of a meeting on an evening. Does Tuesday evening seem to make any sense? I would love to plan the first meeting for Tuesday May 12 at 6:30 pm. If you would like to hear about CIT’s and Barn Rats, please come that day, an email letting me know if you can come would be great.
A very exciting congratulations should go out to our newest and youngest boarder, Goldie Dove and her pony Starlight. Congratulations on your pony Goldie!!!
See you in the aisles!
Heidi
Plans for summer
Today we are expecting great temperatures and we have a good lesson book and plans are in the works for a superior summer!!! I am so excited. I don’t know where to begin. I guess I will just go alphabetically.
Barn Rats, a lot of people are wondering about the barn rat program that we did not run very much last year. This year we will run the program in a very new manner. I will be meeting with people over Spring break to discuss the program and expectations. One thing is we will have set days for each person with a maximum number of barn rats per day. Each barn rat will have responsibilities that will keep them very busy for the day. They will each be in charge of two horses, the stalls, and buckets of those horses, and two paddocks. They will be learning about all aspects of individual horse care. They will also assist with summer camp in intervals. This program will not carry a fee, but will have HIGH expectations, not for the kid who wants to “hang out” at the farm, but fantastic for the kids who want to be a PART of the farm.
Camp, well there is already so much info on the web site about that I can say please follow the links. I have NEVER been so excited about the quality of camp we are offering. This is a must attend camp if you want horses, education, fun, and MORE fun. There will be something for EVERYONE!!! Spots are ALREADY getting filled so please send in your info asap.
CIT’s are girls who are 14 and over who have attended camp, and been barn rats in the past who are qualified to assist with camp. There will be a mandatory training session the week of June 22-26, and these kids will lay a major roll in the afternoon part of the camp. Girls should see me in advance if they want to be considered for this program. This is a huge next step for becoming a qualified equestrian.
The three “G’s” Groom, Graze, Gorgeous, as the spring progresses we need people to come in to groom, pull manes, shed these beasts out, then graze them for 30 minutes at a time so that they become the most gorgeous horses on the planet. Any one who is a regular rider at the farm may participate in this, mom’s too! If you have a love for horses, then you will enjoy this one on one time with them. The horse really loves it too!
Leases, this year as always we will be offering the half lease opportunity to all students again. If you are interested in a half lease see Heidi. If you want to half lease for just one month it is $300 per month, if you want to half lease for two months it is $285 per month, and if you want to half lease for three or more months it is $275 per month. Just see Heidi as soon as possible so that we can reserve your favorite horse for you! Riders who are half leasing or full leasing are exempt from the $5 horse use fee for lessons.
Training projects this year will be limited as the horse market is pretty soft. At the moment we still have horses for sale, so I don’t want to bring in new ones. Those horses that are still for sale will continue with their trainer, however I will be putting a buddy on to each horse. A buddy is a rider with more experience that will help train and continue the education of these horses. The buddies will be asked to show the horses if the trainer is not quite ready to do so. This decision will be made by me and will be in the best interest of trainer and potential sales for the horse. Should the market change we will right away open the opportunity to have this program at a larger scale.
Phew, I think I covered it. If you have ANY questions about ANYTHING please just email me and I will get right back to you.
See you in the aisles!!
Heidi