Becoming a Life Time Rider: Summer of Self Competition In Our Program

What good does it to to teach a teenager to be a great rider and to love riding without helping them learn a lifestyle that will help make it possible for them to continue riding for another fifty years? Consider this, a very large proportion of my riders will grow up to have metabolic disorder, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and a host of other lifestyle related health problems. Video and computer games, and worst of all, those cell phones are the cigarettes' of today's youth. They are deadly addictions. 

 This summer program participants will be allowed to compete for the opportunity to go on a off site trail ride with only a handful of experienced riders. It will be a very special ride. the kids will think that the ride is the reward, but the actual reward is the introduction to a healthy lifestyle that they can carry on throughout their lives. The rules are simple, from the first of June until the last day of August those who choose to be in the program will have to keep their own records and the high point competitors in various age divisions will get to go on the special fall trail rides. 

 Scoring is simple: twenty minutes very brisk walking with a weight in each hand, curling and pumping vigorously 1 point per day (if the session is completed before 7:00 am the participant gets 1.5 points per day) Posting on an inflatable exercise ball, twenty seconds on, ten seconds off, for four minutes three times per week 5 points--any thing less than three times per week 0 points Completion of a 20 mile or more ride; 10 points for each ride

 Read " Hope Rising"

25 points for reading the book and participating in a group discussion of the book

A practioner of natural horsemanship will find this program invigorating and rewarding. One trapped in the box that passes for education in the established horse world will never understand what this has to do with riding.