#apple charli xcx played while i drew this

[08232024]

i think the apples rotten right to the core

[madrivervalleyicelandics]

This summer we were able to fulfill a long term dream of ours and offer a fun and intensive Summer Horsemanship Program for dedicated young riders. The camp was designed to be fun first and foremost, but also highly educational, giving students the chance to gain a lot of knowledge and hands-on experience in a concentrated period of time. Three girls ages 7-8 joined us for a week and were each assigned their "own horse" to care for and ride for the duration of the camp. Each day, they arrived and helped with chores, rode their horses together in lessons, and then ate lunch while I gave age-appropriate lectures, complete with visuals (PowerPoints, pictures, and videos) projected onto the Apple TV. Following the lecture, the students worked on activities and projects related to the day's topic.

The topics were as follows:

Day 1: Equine Welfare and Ethical Horsemanship! The students arrived, received their horse assignments, and after morning chores they practiced mounted games during their riding lesson including an obstacle course and a baton toss game. The day's lecture focused on the ASPCA's Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare, and the "Fed Up Fred" 6 F's comic which outlines basic horse Welfare needs a little more specifically. We learned about what horses need to feel happy, healthy, and safe, and why they have these biological, mental, and emotional needs. We talked about science-based husbandry and how we can practice husbandry that meets our horses' needs. We also looked at pictures of farms that do and don't meet the five freedoms, and learned why even some big fancy farms that offer a lot of luxury for human visitors are sometimes lacking the basics for equine welfare. Then, each child was assigned a freedom (or two!) to illustrate and the students made a beautiful poster to use as an education tool for farm visitors in the future!

Day 2: Health and Wellness! After chores, the day's riding lesson consisted of learning how to longe - safe longeing is an important skill for horsepeople to have, and ties in nicely to the health and wellness topic because it's often used for strengthening, conditioning, and training young/weak horses, rehabilitating injuries, and detecting lameness/Gait irregularities. The students took turns longeing each other on our wonderful Thór, while the rider got to practice shooting our toy bow and arrows at a target 😊 For the day's lecture, the students got to interview our wonderful vet, Dr. Will Barry, DVM, and our superb farrier team from Common Ground Hoofcare. One of our farriers, Annie Commons, was able to come to the stable to give a demonstration for the students. She trimmed hooves and allowed them to watch, ask questions, and touch the hoof and tools to better understand what she was doing and why. She taught them about the internal structures of the hoof, what hooves need to be healthy, and what can go wrong. She also taught them how to check digital pulses, an extremely useful skill that all horsepeople should have but that many pros don't know how to do! During lunch, I lectured on how to tell when horses are healthy, and when they are not - we looked at recent research that allows us to read equine facial expressions for pain, and we learned about vital signs like ideal body temperature, respiratory rate, and pulse. We learned about common illnesses and ailments, why they happen and how to treat them, and watched videos of what symptoms look like. We also focused on the role that stress plays in health, and drew connections between quality of husbandry and chronic ailments like ulcers, stable vices, chronic laminitis, etc. We also examined the role that quality training and riding plays in muscular development and general wellbeing. Finally, we went out to the stable and learned how to check vitals and treat basic ailments in a more hands-on way. We took temperatures, practiced giving medicine via oral syringe (just water in the syringe, of course!) and learned how to correctly wrap a stable bandage - something we have seen too many pros do incorrectly - an incorrect bandage can injure the tendons and make matters worse, so it's important to learn the correct wrapping method!

Day 3: Trail ride day! The students rode their horses (accompanied by instructors on foot) up into the woods, crossing a creek and steep terrain, and dismounted at a local campsite for a picnic lunch. After lunch, they rode home and took care of their horses before continuing on the health and wellness topic from the day before. One of our farriers, Annie Commons, leant us a real horse skull and a real skeletal horse leg in which the bones fit together with magnets and can be moved/pulled apart. We looked at how the leg joints and internal structures of the hoof move and we counted teeth in the skull (finding one wolf tooth!). We looked at how different bit and noseband pressures work on the face, tongue, and mouth - the students were surprised to feel how sharp the bars in the mouth are, a great illustration of why we don't use backwards pressure on the snaffle when we ride! We also made a poster with the questions and answers from our interview with our vet and farriers, and each student drew a picture to go along with one of their questions for the poster.

Day 4: Conformation! The students got to ride bareback, a favorite activity, and practice balance and seat exercises, plus team relay exercises on their horses. The day's lecture topic was part 1 of two parts on the Icelandic horse as a performance horse. We learned about the history of the breed and it's used throughout Iceland's history until now. We learned what the horses were expected to do and why, and how that has changed and stayed the same over time. We learned when the first Landsmót took place, and the role that cars played in the breed's shift from survival to sport. We then learned about what our various expectations for our horses are now, and how conformation and biomechanics allow the horses we breed to fulfill our expectations. We learned about the breed standard and looked at examples of good conformation and poor conformation. We also looked at before and after pictures of horses I trained in the past to examine how correct dressage training can improve some conformation faults and can help horses to move more correctly, develop good posture, muscles, and balance, and achieve better longevity. We then analyzed the conformation of each of the students' own horses for the week, looking at what is good, what is limiting, and explaining how the students may feel their horses' conformation flaws and advantages come through when they ride. Then we played one of our favorite games, Paint The Parts of The Horse! The game works like this - I call out a part of the horse, and students take turns trying to fingerpaint a handprint on a real horse in the correct location (we used horse-safe nontoxic washable paint on our horse, Thór, because he's white and the paint shows up well). If they land the handprint in the right spot, they earn a piece of candy. By the end, Thór was covered in colorful handprints and the kids had a nice pile of candy. Then, we all gave Thór a bubble bath and finished the day with a horseless horse show, taking turns jumping and running through a course of obstacles on foot in the ring.

Day 5: Rideability! The students practiced an age-appropriate competition "program," essentially a mini dressage test where they had to show trot, walk, and tölt with transitions, changes of directions, and circles at designated points, in preparation for performing for their parents on the final day of camp. They rode their programs one at a time while their fellow students watched, and at the end the ones watching told the rider one great thing about their program, and one thing they could improve on next time. Then, the riders got to choose a song to ride their program to on the final day. The lunch lecture built off the the previous day's lecture, considering history and conformation to examine rideability - what is good rideability, how to we judge it, how to we breed for it, how to we train for it and how do we ride for it? We looked at different examples of good riding on videos, and learned about different kinds of competitions available to Icelandic horses and how they're judged and why. After the final lecture on performance horses, we pulled up WorldFengur on the Apple TV and the students got the chance to research their own horses using the program. They answered a survey of questions about their own horses, as well as their horses' mothers and fathers, and we looked at how the scores and traits of the parents have manifested in the offspring. The students made posters answering these questions and illustrating their favorite things about their horses.

Day 6: Show time! After morning chores, the students groomed their horses to a shine. We braided their tails and picked flowers from the garden to decorate them. We put horse-safe glitter in their manes, tails, and on their bodies. Then the students' families and fans arrived and the riders performed their competition programs one by one while their chosen music played over a portable speaker.  Frostrós’ rider chose “My Shot from Hamilton, Thór’s rider chose “Let Me Love You” by DJ Snake featuring Justin Bieber, and Spönn’s rider chose “Boom Clap” by Charli XCX.  After a photo op with the horses, they put their horses away and presented their poster projects from the week. They got to teach their families and fans about their horses, the 5 Freedoms of Animal Welfare, and about basic health and wellness for equines. Seeing the students confidently present the knowledge they had gained over the week was perhaps the best part of the camp!

We had so much fun and will definitely be doing this again in the future, hopefully with several sessions next summer! Special thank you to Emese and Keziah, our camp counselors who helped me all week long <3