2009 Day Camp at Gale's for the week of July 6th through the 10th. We enjoyed 10 lovely young ladies,ages 4 through 14. The average age was 9 years old. The theme of the camp was "Dressage as the Basis for All RIding", and we worked on perfecting dressage tests for the Friday Ridecital, a performance given to the family and friends of our campers. We included instructional classroom activities about dressage and other horse events. We also learned about the parts of the saddle and bridle and the basic exterior anatomy of the horse. The girls became more familiar with grooming and tacking up horses for riding, several being able to do so completely on their own by the end of camp week.

The craft project was to use jewels and fabric paints to decorate halters for their horses. Each halter was as individual as the young lady that decorated it.

The Ridecital was a lovely success with the group performing a very nice drill team demonstration and then each girl riding a USDF Introductory Dressage Test. I performed a higher level dressage demonstration with Beike and the group concluded with presenting their halters to the audience and stating a short explanation of what they learned during camp week.

I'd say that the week was a great success and we look forward to next year's camp week. Perhaps we'll have enough interest to host more than one week next year!

Many thanks to all the helpers that made Day Camp 2009 a great success.
~Gale