On the weekend of June 21-23rd, my talented equestrian and trick riding performer friends dream of a weekend camp to educate the next generation of equine performers became a reality. Sixteen riders ages 5-30 made their way to Belmont, OH to learn safety, technique, new tricks, and showmanship to be a performer.
It was a long three days with a lot of activities, trainings, and work. These riders worked hard to learn some coming in with experience and others with no experience. To start they got split into teams, ice breaker challenges, then they learned to work tricks on a barrel— done before the horse to learn to properly execute safely.
After barrel work the riders got to put that knowledge into play on horses. Day one with their four legged counterparts was walking to get the feel of doing these tricks on moving animals, to get comfortable and gain confidence. By the morning of day two with the horses the riders were perfecting their tricks because they would have a show that evening displaying what they had learned during the weekend.
There were costumes, camp fires, movies, and surprise videos from the trick riding professional wishing them luck at camp who did the tricks in Cowgirls N Angels.
Overall it was a great weekend even if this photographer did get a 2nd degree sunburn and sun poisoning on her forehead— even after applying sunscreen my working theory was I was wiping my brow and accidentally removing it…. sigh live and learn right.
Check out the images from Camp!
