July 30, 2008 - Kreuth, Germany
Because there are so many camps in a short period of time, I have not been able to make it to all of them. I met up with the team from Sam Houston State University on the last day of their first camp in Kreuth. Dr. Matt McMillan is going to fill us in on what I missed:
Upon arriving in Munich from Vienna, we traveled by car to Kreuth for one and a half hours to begin our next camp in the Osterbayernhalle facility. After arriving at the largest privately owned equine facility in the world, we were amazed at the size and space available to us to conduct our clinic. That evening, we met with Rainer Maierhofer, president of the Bavarian Western Riding Association, and the 19 clinic participants.
After brief introductions, we began to make groups for the next morning. Four groups were arranged so that two would meet early morning and afternoon and two would meet late morning and afternoon. It worked out great so that each group only had three to five participants per session.
The first day, we worked on the fundamentals of control and riding. On days two and three, we practiced exercises in western pleasure, horsemanship, trail, reining and working cow horse. The participants were very excited every morning and worked hard to make progress with their horses. Outside of the clinic, the participants took us to Regensburg for some Bavarian culture. We ate traditional Bavarian cuisine and visited with many of the participants. It was interesting to see the differences and similarities of our cultures.
In the end, we met many German people who are passionate about their horses and horsemanship abilities. While we may have had some differences in language and culture, one thing was for sure that we all have a deep passion to become great horsemen and ride good horses.
