Kids beat the heat, learn to ride at horse camp

Posted by Nancy Guenther Chapman on July 30th, 2010 at 2:32 am,
with photos by Nancy Guenther Chapman

Sarah Hamsher, 8, left, rides Jose. Com­ing up behind her are Alex Schlap­man, 11, and Rosey.

Sara Corzil­ius, 11, and Kaity Corzil­ius, 15, had never rid­den a horse before last week.

This week they are described as inter­me­di­ate rid­ers, capa­ble of rid­ing a horse bare­back through a pond.

The sis­ters made this progress at two of the Bit of Hope Horse Ranch sum­mer camps held at the home of Lisa and Don Hamsher, near Engle­wood Farm Acres. They and about 15 other girls are enjoy­ing rid­ing horses, dec­o­rat­ing horses, learn­ing about horse health care and hors­ing around in the camps, which cost $175 a week. Also enjoy­ing the fun are about six young helpers, some of them siblings.

Sheri­dyn Craft, 9, rides Simon through the pond.

The Bit of Hope Horse Ranch is a non-profit enter­prise where owner Suzanne Park nurses neglected and abused horses back to health, and nur­tures the chil­dren who love them in the process. Children earn horse lessons by vol­un­teer­ing at the ranch, located at 420 Texas Ave. Park can’t have pub­lic events there — she would need a spe­cial excep­tion from Sara­sota County, and the fee is $7,500 — so she is grate­ful for the gen­eros­ity of the Hamshers.

Addy Wil­son, 11, and Aldyn Craft, 10, ride Samp­son, a horse accus­tomed to pulling the ranch’s cart.

Last week’s camp was for beginners. This week is for inter­me­di­ate rid­ers, and next week the advanced girls will go on trail rides.

“Those that were jump­ing 18 inches are now jump­ing two feet,” Park said Wednes­day. “Girls are work­ing on their cor­rect diag­o­nals and leads. We had Dr. (John­nie) Copeland from Sara­sota Equine (Asso­ciates) out this morn­ing and he gave sev­eral demon­stra­tions and he talked to the girls for an hour, answer­ing ques­tions and talk­ing about med­ical issues for their horses. It was very neat.”

Thurs­day, a a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the United States Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture talked to them about agri­cul­tural issues, includ­ing the impor­tance of the Cog­gins test, a blood test required both fed­er­ally and by the state,  to prove a horse does not carry Equine Infectious Anemia.

“A lot of peo­ple are aggra­vated about it because it does cost money,” Park said. But, she said  it’s impor­tant because the horses can carry the disease.

Sheri­dyn Craft, 9, left, and Nolan Obirek, 6, give Simon a work out.

Thurs­day morn­ing, Sampson, a light draft horse Park described as a Percheron cross, got a shave as the girls learned to show-clip their horses.

“Cause he’s hairy, he’s just a beast,” Park said, as the rea­son Samp­son got this honor.

Samp­son was also pressed into unusual ser­vice ear­lier this week when the girls dec­o­rated him.

“We played a game where they broke into two teams,” Park said. “One team was red, one team was yel­low, and we pulled the names of body parts out of a bag. They had to take their paint and go paint that body part. It was hilar­i­ous. At the end of the game he was a pink and yel­low mess.”

The campers have also made neck­laces for the horse, made key chains out of horse hair and gone swim­ming at Oys­ter Creek Park.

Wednes­day they spent an hour cir­cling in and out of a pond in the Myakka State Forest.

Mor­gan Mier­swa, 13, lets an ice ball fly.

In the after­noon, the kids enjoyed snow cones made with a donated snow cone machine and ice donated from the Engle­wood Water Dis­trict. Then, to use up the ice, there was a snow ball fight.

“It’s been fun,” Park said.

The same num­ber of girls are expected for most of the trail rides. The advanced girls are load­ing up the trail­ers and going to places such as Deep Creek, Deer Prairie, Carl­ton Reserve and Palma Sola Bay in Braden­ton, off the cause­way to Anna Maria Island, to swim with the horses.

Park expects a bus­load of kids for that final day of  fun.

Com­ing up for the ranch is par­tic­i­pa­tion in the annual Pio­neer Days parade and 4-H, which resumes  in September.

“If any­body wants to check it out and come, we will be meet­ing at our (Rags to Riches thrift) store the first Thurs­day in Sep­tem­ber” at about 6:30 p.m., Park said.

The  store is located at 499 S. Indi­ana Ave.

For more infor­ma­tion about the ranch go to http://www.bitofhoperanch.com/about

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