Congratulations – you’ve decided to send your child to a summer horse camp and have found the perfect one. Now you face a more difficult decision – should your child bring their own horse with them to summer camp? While bringing their own horse might sound like the ideal situation to a child, you need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages. Depending on the situation, bringing a horse to camp might not be the best decision for your child.

The Benefits of Bringing a Horse to Camp

There are definitely advantages for a child who brings their own horse to camp. The horse will be familiar to the child, and for a rider who lacks confidence or who is going away to camp for the first time, knowing that their own horse waits for them in the barn can be reassuring.

Riders who bring their own horses to camp also have the opportunity to develop their skills with their regular horse, and can expose their horse to new situations. Riding under the instruction of a new trainer may help riders identify new ideas or training strategies that their normal instructor hadn’t touched on. Camps often offer unique opportunities, such as overnight trail rides or cross-country schooling. For riders who don’t have these amenities at home, bringing their horses to camp can offer great benefits.

The Disadvantages of Bringing a Horse to Camp

In choosing to bring their horses to camp, riders are missing out on some of the experiences that the camp can offer. One of the great reasons to attend a horse camp is that it exposes riders to many different horses. If a young rider already owns their own horse, then they’re likely not riding many different horses in their program back home. Riding different horses and learning to adjust to each individual horse’s quirks and way of going is an excellent way to improve as a rider. Riders who bring their own horses to camp miss out on this opportunity.

Additionally, the horse that a rider brings to camp from home may not be used to some of the activities that campers participate in. An overnight trail ride might be out of the question for a horse that lacks exposure to trail rides, and if a rider is faced with introducing their own horse to the cross-country course for the first time, they may quickly fall behind other riders mounted on camp horses which are familiar with the activities.

Some camps have extra camp horses available to a rider in the event that his or her own horse is not suitable for an activity, or if the horse falls ill or becomes injured. You will want to consider the advantages and disadvantages of sending your child and their own horse to camp before you agree to do so.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/92154034@N00/3998651605 

Original Source: http://blog.classic-equine.com/2014/05/should-your-child-bring-thei...