The Downtown Boxing Gym recently teamed up with Detroit Horse Power to give our students a one-of-a-kind week of learning how to ride and care for horses at Cedar Ridge Equestrian Center in Ann Arbor. Click below to watch a video of the amazing experience.
Exposure to new experiences can make a big difference in a child’s life. That’s why Detroit Horse Power aims to give Detroit students free access to riding and taking care of horses.
DBG students had an unforgettable week at horse camp, held at Cedar Ridge Equestrian Center in Ann Arbor, where learning to ride horses also helped to build social emotional skills.
Detroit Horse Power teaches campers the acronym PERCS: Perseverance, empathy, responsible risk taking, confidence, and self-control.
“We teach students how to ride and take care of horses as a way to build critical character traits,” says Detroit Horse Power founder and executive director David Silver. “These are life lessons that we learn from horses that are universally applicable to our everyday lives.”
Each day at horse camp, DBG students rotated through stations learning riding and horse care and more. Other lessons that go along with the experience include responsibility, following directions, safety, and treating the animals with care and compassion.
On the last day of camp, campers gave their favorite horses homemade treats and write “thank you” letters as a goodbye.
“I learned responsible risk taking and that you have to be calm and quiet around horses,” says DBG student and camper Antonia. “Humans and horses are kind of the same because they both have feelings. You have to treat the horse with respect to get respect back.”
Founded in 2015, Detroit Horse Power relies on partner horse barns to donate space and horses for this program. They aim to move to a more permanent location in Detroit in the future.
“Eventually creating a space in the city where youth have ownership wrapped in the fabric of the community is where we’re ultimately heading,” says Silver. “Detroit Horse Power’s long term goal is to repurpose vacant land in Detroit to build a new urban equestrian center where we can have these programs happen year round, right in the community where our kids live.”
Click here to support the Downtown Boxing Gym and make programs like this possible for more Detroit students. Learn more about Detroit Horse Power at DetroitHorsePower.org.