10 Rainy Day Activities for Therapeutic Riding Instructors

What does your program do for rainy days if you do not have an indoor arena?  Do you have to cancel lessons on rainy days?  Here are some ideas for keeping students engaged, improving their horsemanship skills and skill having a great time.

1. Create a large scale horse drawing that students can label the parts on.  You can also use sticky labels on a horse that is happy to stand quietly.  This type of activity helps students understand more about their horses.  For students with good cognitive skills you can teach them the parts of the horse in comparison to human parts.  For students in wheelchairs you can use a smaller picture or miniature horse for labeling.  Lastly, you can carefully select the parts you teach the students (head or eye in comparison to muzzle or poll).
2. Grooming- teach your students how to groom and tack their horse.  This can help them understand the different parts of the equipment they use, why it’s used and safety features.  Grooming is a great bonding experience for riders and helps them give back and be kind to their mounts.
3. Tack bingo: have the riders play a game of tack bingo in the tack room.  The instructor will need to make BINGO cards (with pictures or words depending on the level of the students) and single words or pictures for drawing.  Students can mark with dry erase markers on laminated sheets.
4. Tack cleaning: teach students how to clean their tack.  This is especially great before a show, but also throughout the year.  This can help teach students that it is important to care to for tack that is used in their riding lessons.  The instructor can modify the number of steps for the level of the students.  Leather new requires spraying and wiping, but Lexol cleaner and conditioner can require several steps.
5. Barn chores: teach the students what goes into taking care of horses!  Teach them about picking stalls, cleaning water buckets, sweeping the aisle and feeding their mounts.  Riders of all levels can participate in barn chores.
6. Horse treats: helps the students make horse friendly treats to say “thank you” to their favorite horse.  Horse treats can be made via mixing, baking or freezing.  There are many horse treat recipes online.
7. Bath and beauty: this works great for hot summer days during a summer shower.  Give the horse a bath by hose or soapy bucket.  Teach your students how to approach the horse when giving a bath, how important it is to clean sweat off the horse and how to make the horse feel good while getting a bath.  Then allow the students to give the horses some TLC with grooming, TTouches or turning the horses out into the field to roll!
8. Review video taped riding lessons: regularly video taping your students’ riding lessons allows you to review their skills with them during rainy day clinics.  Students who learn visually can especially benefit from reviewing themselves riding.  This allows the riding instructor to point out both good and bad habits.
9. Colors and markings:  use the horses in your herd to teach horse colors and markings.  You can also use a color chart to teach the names and markings first and then allow the students to find horses with similar colors or markings in the barn.  Stall guards work well for allowing the student to see the horse safely in his/her stall.
10. Obstacle or relay games:  students can walk or wheel an obstacle or relay game set up in the barn aisle.  Students can push a wheel barrow around cones or lead a horse through a grooming tool obstacle course.  Students can work cooperatively in a grooming bucket relay game.

These a just a few ideas for therapeutic riding instructors to creatively use rainy days to engage their students in the whole horsemanship experience.  It is important to set up this expectation with students and their parents prior to the first rainy day.  Help parents and students understand that there is more to horses then just riding!