Equestrian Blog

Opps, I forgot to let you know, when I was telling you about our new barn, that with our new facility students will be able to bring thier own horse(s) and board them on campus.

If you are interested in more information or would like to reserve a spot please call 1-800-447-9472

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.

The Judson College Equestrian Program got a new horse last week. His name is Trademark and he is a fifteen or sixteen year old Thoroughbred. Trademark is a vey sweet, loving horse. He has a very glam personality and already seems to be fitting in with our program and other horses well.

Trademark is very nice to ride. His rider needs to have lots of energy, but he is more then willing to please. He is a huntseat horse, and it is obvious just by watching him that he is very talented. Like most horses at Judson, Trademark will probably be used in our western program as well. This won't happen, though, until he has gotten settled in and we have a chance to work with him and help him adjust to the new discipline of riding.

Since I have talked about getting a new horse, I thought I would share with you some about how Judson gets their horses and what the program is looking for in their horses.

Most of Judson's horses are, like Trademark, donation horses.  They belonged someone at one time that was looking for a new home for them for whatever reason. Judson does not except all horses that are offered through donation, but the equine faculty look into those horses that sound like they would be a good match for our program. If a horse is offered to us for donation and the equine department feels that it could work in our program, they arrange a trial period for us to "test" the horse. During this time we are looking to make sure that the horse is in good health and that it gets along well in our program. There are two major factors that we look for to make sure the horse will work in our program:

1. The horse is safe
2. The horse is well rounded

The first is because safety is our first priority.  Our horses are handled by a number of different students from all levels of riding experience and these students need to be safe and feel comfortable with the horses.

The second is because Judson offers students experience in a variety of different areas of equine studies, including huntseat riding and western riding for all levels (beginner to advanced), light horse training, animal partnership, and, soon to come, a therapy class. Since the number of horses we can have on campus is limited, our horses need to be able to be used for a number of different things.  

Today was another wonderful day at Judson. It was one of those days where the sun is out and you just know that spring is finally here. YAY!  It is also that time of year when everyone is getting ready for finals (BOO) and that is no different in the Equine program.  The finals for the riding classes consist of each student choreographing a riding routine. We must select which horse we will ride, what song we will ride to, and come up with a costume to go along with our song. Within our routine we must demonstrate what we have been working on in class. For most people this means they will have to incorporate walking, trotting/jogging and cantering/loping.

It is so much fun to work on these routines. This is our chance to be creative and have fun doing what we love: riding horses. It is also interesting to get to see what everyone else is doing for their routine. This semester I have heard of a couple of people who are doing Alice in Wonderland routines, there are generally a few country routines, and I am sure that there are some other  really neat ones that I have not heard about.

My final for my Huntseat team class is a Star Wars routine. I am going to be riding JC, my song will be the Star Wars opening title and I will dress up as Princess Leia. My final for my Western team class is going to be a little bit different, because there are only two people in that class. We have decided that instead of each of us doing a solo routine we are going to do two duet routines. Our first is going to be a broom stick polo match to the song Girls Just Want to Have Fun and, because we are riding such amazing horses (Doc and Joe), half way through the song we are going to turn around in our saddles and ride backwards. (I am serious, apparently it is a great way to stretch and it is kind of fun, so since we have done it in class we are going to include it in our final). Our second is going to be a flag routine. We haven't picked the music yet, but the routine is planned so we just have to find a song long enough.                                                         (Andrea and Doc)