2009 R.O.A.R.S.
Summer Horse Camp
Week 1 of 3
9:00-10:00 a.m. The first hour of each day the kids check in, play games and we all load up in the mule and head next door for a snack at Royal Oaks Market.  I am sure it's Omar's (the market owner's) favorite part of the morning!  There is usually some rough riding on the way back .. just enough to hear a few squeals and then back to the safe games on the lawn and snack time.
     
10:00-noon: All horses are saddled up and we head out to the arenas.  Beginners get a private 1:1 lesson with an instructor to learn how to ride and once they have down the basics and can ride safely, they join the group in the big arena.  Each rider gets individual instruction time with Tammypi each day on western riding and gymkhana event techniques and they also do drills to go over jumps, exchange flags, pick up bugs and snakes and learn to progress through each of the horses gaits as appropriate.  Riders are pushed to excel, and pushed to ride outside of their box but always and only when they can do it safely.  We spend 4 hours a day riding.  2 hours then we break for lunch and then 2 more hours.
From Left to Right: Sydney on Lolli, Carla on Spanky, Shay on Star, Colby on Fresca, Taylor on Ace, Demelza on Gracie, Tori on Puzzle, Sami on Rusty, and Mia on Amigo.
   
noon - 1:00 was lunch time where we all ate our brown bag lunch, chatted and rested up for the next two hours of riding.
       
After the second riding session and once the horses were all washed down, given treats and kisses, then we were off to craft and afternoon game time.  On this particular day the game was group tug-of-war over the "Water Sludge Pit".  We probably should have told them it was not a swimming pool and the object was to stay DRY!  The didn't seem to notice the color of the water - but the parents did when they picked them up!
 
 
Another afternoon game - soccer in the sprinklers.  Some opted to actually play soccer while others were quite content to build sand castles while the sprinklers cooled them off.
   
   
     
Afternoon craft and movie time is supposed to be our wind down time but this group of kids didn't really need to wind down.  They were like energizer bunnies and kept going and going and going.  One of the boarders favorite things we had the kids do was decorate the mats in the barn isles.  We had the BEST drawings in the state on our mats and everyone loved coming in each day to see the new pictures that the kids had left.
           
     
Taylor and Tori returned for their second year as instructors.  Poor girls, we really worked them hard this year!  We did have fun watching them ride a few times and then we even had a match race with them both and that was fun to watch.  Half the kids cheered for one horse and rider and the other half cheered for the other.  It gave the kids a little taste of a gymkhana match race that are held each year at our State Finals.

Taylor and Ace
   
Tori and Puzzle
 
The end of Day 5:  Each participant and instructor was given an "I Survived R.O.A.R.S. Ranch Camp" airbrushed t-shirt with their name on it.  These kids worked and played really hard and deserved a little souvenir of their summer camp.
 
Menace was never far from the excitement and didn't miss one petting.