A big “Thank You” to Art and Melanie Magner for hosting an Equestrian Youth Safety and Driving Clinic at their Breckenridge Farm in Orange, VA.  Art & Melanie also provided a delicious luncheon, including pulled pork barbecue, hot dogs, coleslaw, potato salad, and baked beans.  Mary & Junior Haney provided all the ingredients for fantastic s’mores, which all the kids and adults enjoyed grilling on the open fire pit! Thank you to all the others who donated desserts, chips, water and soda!  

 

The clinic was designed to be both an educational and fun experience for youths of any age. The horses that were provided and/or brought by participants were well-behaved and well-trained to drive. The students were introduced to the horses along with instructions on safety and proper grooming techniques by Junior Haney and Art Magner. Ricky McLeod explained the purpose of the harness and its components while providing an excellent demonstration and he also gave instructions on communicating with the driven horses using voice commands, line handling skills, and proper usage of the bits. After each participant had a chance to ground drive the horses, demonstrations on hitching a single horse to the vehicle were given and the students were allowed to practice driving in the safety of the round pen.  Other advanced students practiced driving a single horse hitched to a vehicle while navigating the obstacles in another designated area.

 

Art & Melanie Magner were ready with their mini horses, “Patches” & “Tonka”, for anything!  Trey and Cain Mitchell shared their mini horse, “Rosie”, for the harnessing demonstrations and “Rosie” was the perfect horse for teaching the students line control!  She was very forgiving!  Jeff and Jacob Wise provided cart rides with Maggie’s mini horse, “Pony Boy”, for all the students to enjoy.  Sylvia and Daniel Yancey arrived with their mini horse “Treavor” and Daniel immediately volunteered to provide horseback rides for all interested students.

 

After taking a break for lunch, we enjoyed stick-horse races and sack races! Do we have some stories to tell about “green broke” stick-horses!

 

After the games, the students were back to business with the horses! All the students had a chance to work with the horses again on items of their choice.  At the conclusion of the event, Art presented each student with a Breckenridge Farm Equestrian Youth Safety and Driving Clinic Certificate of Completion signed by the ODDHMA President!  If the smiles on all the students’ faces were any indication of how successful the day was for all involved, it was a BIG SUCCESS!

 

Thank you to all the parent’s that trusted the ODDHMA to provide a wonderful learning experience for your child.  Thank you to all the volunteers who donated their time and knowledge to make this event a success.  Without all of us working together, this would not have been possible.

 

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Check out our Press Page for coverage of this event!