The first week of classes has been very busy for everyone. Those of us that teach in the classroom are meeting and getting to know the freshmen, the barn staff are scrambling to find enough work study to take care of the horses (mornings are not popular work times!), and the instructors are busy trying to get the horses hacked and ready for lessons to which start Monday. Phew! Having said all that, it is wonderful to have the students back at school.

Rider placement went pretty well last Thursday. Quincy was so excited to be jumping again that he unloaded his rider on the back side of a jump with a huge buck. Luckily, she landed on her feet and got right back on. All the other horses were perfect and treated the new class kindly.

The equestrian freshmen class is large and very excited for riding lessons to start. We have students from all over the U.S. as well as from Northern Ireland and Papua, New Guinea! Tonight we have Equestrian Fair where everyone comes out to the barn to sign up for team tryouts, work study, volunteering for therapeutic riding, ordering clothes etc. and generally having our first meeting of all equestrians - oh yes, and we serve pizza too.

Looking forward to Sept. Therapeutic Riding starts on Sept 7th and Liz has a full schedule with returning riders and some new recruits. Team tryouts are scheduled for Sept. 11th & 12th followed shortly by the start of IHSA and IDA shows. That reminds me I need to find a judge for our Nov. IDA show, time to get back to work!

Getting ready for School

All the new folks started on Saturday. Four new staff members with Peggy, the student workers and me to get them oriented. Stephanie Davis (stable manager)and Torrey Edgerly (assistant stable manager) are finding their way around the barn and beginning to learn the horses. Why do we have so many bays with white stars? At least there are only 40 to learn right now. The camp horses do not return for another couple of weeks. We are working out of the lesson barn while the TH and boarders barns are pressured washed and fixed up for the start of the school year.

Ashley Foster (Instructor/Coach) and Heather Wile (Instructor/ Event Manager) have taken over the reins from Elissa and Sam and are riding as many horses as possible a day. (Poor Lindsay is still grounded with her shoulder injury.) We start planning the lesson schedule this week which is always an entertaining exercise. I will no doubt be in the registrars office for a couple of hours pulling academic schedules then we all sit around and try to put the pieces together to fit everyone’s schedule and then comes add/drop… oh well!

This weekend the NCDCTA has leased the western barn and the covered arena for a three day dressage clinic. Harriet Peterson and a Dawn Jensen bio mechanics expert are two of the clinicians. After that it will be time to start picking up the horses from camp and getting ready for rider placement on the 20th. We are getting busy again!