A typical day at the barn...

So, high school riders may be asking themselves: What is it like to ride in college?  Here's your answer...

I am taking a Horsemastership class which is our basic riding course required to all students.  Every student must take HM IV in order to move forward and go into other different types of riding classes.  In addition, freshman are required to take Equine Care, which is a class dedicated to barn work and basic equine care criteria.  I have these classes on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout this semester. 

My typical day starts off with 8:00am Biology (which is an awesome class, just not that early in the morning), 9:10am Theatre, and 10:20 IDS (freshman required course).  After my last class on campus I eat lunch, change for the barn, and find a ride to get me to the barn.  My riding class starts at 1:00pm and we have until 1:30 to tack our horses up.  I have some really great friends in the class and we usually are having a good time.  In class we either have our instructor (professor) or our instructor's apprentice teach the class.  The instructor's apprentice is a student taking the Apprenticeship class.  We go over different exercises like the half halt, leg yields, free walk, stretchy circles...  These things are usually involved in our tests for the midterm or for the final exam.  At the end of the lesson we go on walks around the property to cool off our horses and then we take care of our horses (grooming, medicating...).  After we clean our bridles and take care of our horses, one of us is the student manager who checks to make sure we groomed our horses and cleaned our tack.  Then we have an hour to clean a stall we are assigned to.  I have Suzette...she is another story.  Equine Care starts at 4:00.  In this class students learn about different things such as leg wraps, horse markings, clipping, and many other things that involve horse care.  At 5:00 part of Equine Care is the lab where we clean the barn for the morning.  We have two barns upstairs (fastest, easiest barn to clean) and downstairs (very slow to clean).  On a lucky day some of us will be allowed to go upstairs and leave before the lower barn is finished.  Barn duty involves graining the horses, turning the horses out to pasture, sweeping, blowing the aisle, cleaning the wash racks, and many other odd jobs that need to be done.  Usually we finish by 6:00/6:30.  The drive back to campus is always about how hungry we are and how much we want to take a shower and go to bed.  After all, we've spent five and half hours at the barn that day. 

So there you have it, a typical day at the barn...