Instructor Corner

From the desk of Jackie Garman...

This week has been a complete joy! I cannot believe that it has been only a little over four months since we started and we already have students! As of this week I have two students on Monday afternoons, three students on Thursday evenings and one on Friday mornings.
I have two siblings who will be coming on Mondays. One got right into grooming Teddy and was very excited to do anything horsey again. The other did a fantastic job learning the basics of leading Teddy and was laughing the whole time!

Another of my students is 13 yrs old and got to groom Vinny Thursday afternoon. What stuck out to me was her willingness to touch the horse by putting her left hand on Vinny's neck while she used her right hand to move the grooming tools. At the end of the lesson, she even scratched Vinny with both hands and when prompted, she leaned in to smell his mane. This is a huge deal to me because she used to be really nervous to even pat her horse when we were done with a riding lesson. She would put her hand over mine and we would do it together.

Another student used her right hand a lot in the lesson this week. She has cerebral palsy and the right arm and hand have tight muscles, making it difficult to stretch out completely. She was able to use this hand to balance herself while she used the grooming tools in the left hand. We will be working on stretching the fingers and wrist out flat in the weeks ahead.

My final student is a trip! She had a great time grooming Teddy, making sure we knew she could do it herself! When she practiced leading Teddy, doing her whoa's and walk-on's, she would tap her legs together just as if she were riding. It was so cute! We also practiced saying the names of all the horses...right now we have "Binny" and "Huey" to work on