Bridgewater, MA, August 17 – 21, 2026, with Easterseals MA and the Bridge Center. Enjoy lots of 1:1 animal time alongside staff: Collaborate with your peers to design and ride your own obstacle course, create a riding pattern to a song of your choice, and train an animal to learn a new skill. Daily schedule helps participants build essential skills in caring for and riding horses.
Beginner Sample Schedule
• Welcome – Exploring horse colors, breeds, and markings using puzzles/pictures/matching.
• Horse nutrition – Designing our own obstacle course: colors, poles, cones, hula hoops.
• Goat care – Walk the goats through obstacles and practice red light, green light for verbal and visual cues to the animals.
• Horse care – Retrieve a horse from the pasture, halter, and walk it to the grooming stall. Sequencing and single/multistep instructions to groom horses. Sharing grooming tools with peers.
• Horse riding – Games and steering on horseback. Pairing verbal/visual cues and 1:1 instruction with horse leaders. Red light, green light, blue light for scaffolded learning.
• Horse care – Untack horses and return to stalls. This activity builds teamwork and step-by-step instruction to put tack away correctly with peers.
• Craft – Use of color and manipulatives to create a horse photo frame.
• Wrap up – Clean up, bathroom break, and overview of tomorrow’s agenda.
Intermediate-Advanced Sample Schedule
• Welcome – Exploring equine body language and comparing to our own.
• Teambuilding – “Horse Speak” – Communication and conversations through our voices and actions.
• Small Animals – Introducing Positive Reinforcement through clicker training (R+1) with Penelope, the 14-pound bunny, and Wednesday & Zelda, the goats.
• Horse Care – Transferring clicker training to horses; training with the mechanical lift for mounting and dismounting.
• Horse Riding – Drill team practice and synchronized strides.
• Horse Care – Bathing horses, cool down regimen, and introducing mane braiding.
• Wrap Up – Clean up, bathroom break, and overview of tomorrow’s agenda.
