09/03/2025
Caring for horses is truly a labor of love. This Labor Day edition of Unmounted Monday is all about barn chores, and how to turn “dirty work” into a lesson that your students will actually enjoy. 🧹
⚠️ First things first: how are you presenting this lesson to students and parents? Does your curriculum, marketing and onboarding process emphasize that horses are NOT sporting equipment, and that your program teaches essential horse care skills - along with empathy, efficiency, responsibility, and teamwork?
(In our riding school’s marketing, we told prospective students point-blank that if they were ONLY interested in riding, they should go elsewhere. We still had a waiting list that wrapped around the arena twice. Don’t be afraid to advocate for your horses and the kind of horsemanship you want to see in the world.)
The exact barn chores your students learn will depend on your facility and geographic location, but there are a few lesson practices you can apply no matter what kind of feeding, mucking and cleaning is involved:
🧑🤝🧑 Teach groups whenever possible, even if you have to make scheduling adjustments to do it. Giving students an opportunity to bond and tackle projects together is, in our opinion, essential to making work feel like play. (We used to hold well-attended tack cleaning and poop-scooping parties - complete with potluck meal and play sessions in the arena.)
⏳ Turn everything into a game. Divide students into teams and give each team a hay net and a hanging scale, challenging them to be the first to stuff their net with 10 pounds of hay. Put teamwork to the test by having pairs of students muck out a stall with legs tied together in the ultimate three-legged race. We recently saw a brilliant video (credit to Turning Point Therapeutic Riding) of a chore-themed obstacle course set up in the arena. Just be sure to design your races and contests in a way that reward a job well done as well as speed!
🐴 Give students a taste of ownership by pitching your lessons (or clinics!) as “Your Horse for a Day.” Assign each student/team a school horse, or have them draw horse names from a hat. After performing routine chores, such as mucking, watering and feed prep, students can enjoy some bonding time by grooming and playing with their “own” horses on the ground.
💞 Have your students stand in the horse’s shoes whenever possible. We used to encourage thorough stall cleaning by telling students that they should be prepared to lay down and roll around in the stall themselves; just the idea was sufficient motivation to do a good job.
🏆 Use frequent, public positive reinforcement. Award badges or crowns to students who complete specific tasks. Brag about students who check off stable management objectives in your program’s newsletter and social media feed. Don’t forget to mention how these students practiced time management, problem-solving and leadership!
Learning Levels resources you might find helpful:
🔴 Teaching Guide for Red HorseSense Level
🟢 Care for Me Cards (Green Level)
🟢 Stable Management Scavenger Hunt (Green Level)
🟣 Stuff Happens When Caring for Horses (Purple Level)
📚 Want more ideas? THE BIG BOOK OF BARN LESSONS is a treasure trove of unmounted lesson activities (including a chapter devoted entirely to stable management lessons). LLPro members can also find lesson activities for every objective in our unmounted curriculum in the HorseSense Teaching Guides - plus worksheets, games, flashcards and more!
