Our day at horse camp began with a long drive. It was a scenic drive with rolling hills and trees that looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. When we arrived about an hour later, we went into a large barn with 2 dorm rooms and a bathroom. One room was for the boys and one for the girls. There was also a kitchen and a lounge. We met the owner, Rosemary and her assistant. There were a bunch of other kids there that are Ryan’s and Andrew’s friends. We all got to know each other. Then we went out into a field to pick out our horses. Everybody else picked a horse and harnessed it, but I didn’t know how, so I just wandered around the field and waited until Rosemary got me a horse. The horse’s name was Texas. He was last because he was stubborn and in love with another horse.

Horse camp.

We learned to work with our horses. These horses do not use a bit, so we had to learn to work with them in a different way. We learned the commands, we would push on their face to get them to turn, we would shake a rope to get them to back up. We also taught them to follow us. When I took off the halter, Texas would walk straight to Andrew’s horse, this is the horse that he is in love with.

Patrick on Texas

We learned how to make the horse stop and then they were able to follow each other down a path. Now we were able to go to the lake. We arrived at the lake and we took off the saddles. We led the horses into the water and the horses made a creepy noise as the air pressure in their bodies was pushed because of the water. Sometimes the horses would poop and we would all quickly swim away.

We rode back to the camp and after dinner, we played a game called hide-and-go-seek tag in the dark. We also played a New Zealand version of eeny-meeny-miny-moe to see who would be it. Once we came inside we played a version of Mafia called Murder in Dark, this version is a little different because everyone moves around.

The next day we did some more training this time in an octagon shaped, enclosed ring. We also had a challenge to get all of the horses to move together in a straight line.

Once we were successful, we went to the lake to swim again. When we got back to the camp we put our saddles away and brushed our horses. Then we headed back to Ryan and Andrew’s house for the night.