Summer camp review: I visited Lake View Ranch to meet the owner and get a description of the horse summer camp program, prior to enrolling my 10-year-old grandson. I met the owners - Jess, who runs the camp, and her husband. They gave me a tour and Jess explained the camp program. The camp instructor is Jess’s Mother. I told Jess and her Mother my grandson had been to a previous horse camp.
Jess said they provide American-style horse training centered around the rodeo and its events. In example, besides learning horseback riding, she said the kids would be taught roping and barrel racing, etc. That caused me to raise my eyebrows. My kid is familiar with riding horses, because of the previous horse camp as well as horseback riding separate from the first camp.
I liked the idea of him learning to gingerly ride around barrels. But barrel racing would be too advanced and unsafe for his skill level. Jess noticed my non-verbal reaction and then revised what she had said. She added: they don’t really race around barrels but the kids do learn to ride around poles.
Lake View has a demonstration on the last day of camp of what the students learned. First in a small ring, all the kids (except my grandson) rode slowly walking horses that were urged on by the camp instructor. My grandson did a brief basic trot, which he had learned at his first camp.
Then, in a larger arena, all the kids rode a slowly walking horse which was led by a teenage wrangler holding a rope attached to the horse’s harness. After that brief walk, the wrangler led each student (again, with a rope attached to the horse’s harness) as they slowly walked around the barrels and then the poles.
On the drive home after the demonstration, I asked my grandson what the class was taught about barrel racing. He said a few times the instructor had the class (on foot) run around the barrels and then run around the poles. Then they sat on the horse and a wrangler led the walking horse with a rope around the barrels and poles.
Obviously, this camp does not teach beginning horsemanship or build on a student’s prior knowledge and experience, which the instructor said was part of her individualized teaching approach.
The camp description I was given was a fiction and a thoroughly misleading sales pitch. This horse camp is an expensive form of theme daycare.