Horsemanship - Stablemanagement

In this part of the camp campers will learn barn/pasture safety and proper horse care. We aim to create a supportive and enthusiastic group of campers who leave our camp with a love for these animals and the understanding that being an equestrian is more than jumping in the saddle. 

Camp Pony Gang in Hopkins strongly believes in the importance of  developing the equestrian of tomorrow that knows safe horsemanship, horsemanship lessons at our camp and correct care for horses and ponies are just as important as their mounted skills. 

We hope to avoid with this an uniformed request by a child who might say "mom/dad buy me a horse". Once they have spend time in our camp they will know what time and work goes into complete horse care, what it means to own a horse and what responsibility comes with it.  

Each camper will have a horse/pony assigned to them on the beginning of the camp week. (This must not always be the one they are riding during their riding lessons.) Campers will be responsible for the care of this horse and apply what they learn in our horsemanship training class.

Campers will enhance their knowledge on daily barn activities as well as routine horse care, feeding, grooming, hoof care, stall and pasture  care, first aid and horse health. 

Because of in the past 3 years having more and more campers that have been surprised in what Horsemanship / Stable management / Horse care all includes, do we want parents to ensure that they share the below information with their camper and make themselves aware of this all also. 

We will break down below for all of our future campers and their parents what to expect in our Stable management  part of camp: 

Time invested in Horsemanship care approx. 90-120 minutes a day!

Pasture Care: Camper will be responsible for cleaning one of our pastures (most housing 10-15 horses/ponies). It regular takes a max. of 30-45 minutes to perform this task, if campers stay on it. 

Water troughs: Team of campers are responsible to fill up the water in the pasture they got assigned to twice a day (mornings and afternoons). The task can in the morning be performed during the pasture cleaning, so no extra time is needed. Depending how empty the water through is in the afternoon, it takes 20-30min to fill it up. Wednesdays the water through have to be scrapped clean to ensure that no allgies build up in it, because like us humans horses don't like to drink dirty water and it is also not healthy. This task takes 15minutes tops and it is fun during hot day because we are playing with water.

Feeding/Graining assigned horse/pony: Each camper will prepare the grain/feed for the horse/pony that got assigned to them twice a day. Take the horse/pony out of their pasture and feed them. During the afternoon/night time feeding, campers also will groom the horse/pony as long as they are eating. This task will take a camper regular around 20-25 minutes per feeding. 

Horses/ponies assigned to campers for care, don't always have to be the horse/pony they are riding during horsemanship lessons. We have over 40 horses and ponies here at Pony Gang and some of them are rescues that are not ridable anymore or older horses that have their forever home here at the Farm. During the summer camp time, our pasture ornaments are falling short, because we as their daily attention giver are busy caring for our campers with lessons, cooking and clean up. So, our campers jump in and give our special four legged friends the  attention and care they deserve.