Eventing Boot Camp

This summer I got an opportunity to run a camp of my very own. The farm owner offered me a whole week to run completely amuck, to cause my own chaos, to teach whatever I wanted. Oh, and to have some filtering over who got to join the camp.

I think we had a really awesome week. We totally ran out of time to do all the things I wanted to do. 

We had an awesome dressage clinic.

We talked about different lunging tools, how to use them, and when you might want to. 

We talked about ground manners and how to train them. 

We COVERED some horses in mud, and then I blindfolded the campers and made them team up to see which team could more effectively clean their horse while blind. 

• We did yoga
• We designed a jump grid for our individual horse's issues
• We played around with drill team exercises
• We did mounted games
• We practiced dressage tests and talked about strategies for laying better-scoring tests down
• We put together a model horse
• We got to talk with a farrier about all sorts of things, and even got to try shaping a hot shoe
• We calculated how many calories each of our horses are getting and discussed ways to make sure their nutrition is complete and supporting them
• We ate ice cream
• We clicker trained our horses to do a trick 
• We figured out our horse's resting heart rate and compared it to after a dressage session

Basically, it was awesome. I loved it. I can't wait to do it again.