Construction on Judson's new barn has finally begun! The construction teams came in at the beginning of last week.

The new barn will be located next to the riding arena. The roof structure for the new barn is what used to be the old riding arena. When the new arena was built a few years ago, the old arena was disassembled, moved, and attached to the arena to serve as the basic frame work for the new barn. Since then, we have been using the area as additional arena space and remained in the old barn while the funds to finish the new barn were being raised.

It was nice to have the extra covered space to ride in, but I don't think you will find anyone in the program who is sad that it is no longer able to be ridden in. We are much more excited over the fact that by the time we get back to Judson from summer break we should have a new barn! 

The new barn will make for a number of benefits, both for the equine program and for the individual students who are involved in the program. The first benefit is that the barn will be located right next to the arena. This will limit the amount of class time spent traveling from the old barn to the arena and back ( up hill both ways, might I add). Having the barn connected to the arena will also increase the number of days we can actually ride during class. Right now if it is raining, even just a little, we are unable to ride because the equipment would be damaged by the rain on the way to the arena.  The new barn will also be an updated facility that will provide the equine department the ability to keep the program up to date and, over time, expand the program.