Hop along youngsters

Danette Goulet

It wasn’t just jumping on the back of the nearest horse and galloping

about as they might have thought.

Children enrolled in Cheryl Skidmore’s horse camp offered through the

city of Newport Beach learned more than just how to ride horses. Students

learned how to care for a horse before ever being astride one.

“She really tried to teach them that owning a horse is more than

jumping in a saddle,” said Caroline Rausch, one of the camp’s

instructors. “They come away knowing it’s a lot of work.”

The 16 children enrolled in this final three-day camp of the summer,

which was held at The Stables in Anaheim, gathered around the corral

admiring the majestic beasts.

While they were all excited for their chance to ride, first they would

have to do the dirty work.

Children were split into two groups -- those younger than 7 and those

8 to 10.

Instructor Cheryl Hall led the little ones over to the stalls, where

she handed several campers a rake and pitchforks twice their size and

explained the importance of cleaning a horse’s stall.

Instead of revolting as one might expect, nearly all the young girls

attacked the job with gusto.

After raking out the old, children grabbed armfuls of shavings to

pitch into the stall to make a soft bedding for the horse.

“It’s hard,” said Paris Mitchell, 6. “But it’s fun.”

Not everyone shared her positive outlook.

“I have a horse, but he’s not stinky like this,” said Marissa

Noelramos, 5, of Newport Beach.

While the younger campers cleaned up after the horses, the older

students cleaned up the actual horses.

“I’m going to show you how we shave and clip horses,” Rausch informed

students, showing them the clippers. “It just kind of tickles is all it

does, and it just clips the hair off.”

One at a time, campers clad in helmets for safety had the chance to

hold the head of a pinto named Honey Girl and clip her whiskers.

“It was weird because it was hard when [the horse] was moving,” said

Elizabeth Howard, 8.

Most of them seemed to come away with a similar impression of the

experience.

“My hands are all massaged now,” said 9-year-old Brandi Follett,

thrown off by the vibration of the electric clippers.

* THE CAMP FEATURE is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Danette Goulet visits a camp related to Newport-Mesa and writes

about her experience.