Stickney and Cicero, Sick., are neighboring suburbs that hug the west facet of Chicago. Stickney is residence to Hawthorne Race Course. Cicero is the headquarters of J. Sterling Morton Excessive Faculty District 201, which serves roughly 8,000 college students from Cicero and surrounding communities.
Close to the highest of the Hawthorne stretch is a Golden Corral car parking zone. From this vantage level, you possibly can clearly see horses on the observe throughout coaching or racing. One morning whereas watching coaching from right here, coach Chris Block noticed a bunch of Morton Excessive Faculty college students gathered by a fence observing the horses. An thought popped into his head: “We should always deliver extra of these college students to the observe.”
Final week, the Illinois Backstretch Charitable Basis, the benevolent arm of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Affiliation, in collaboration with Amplify Horse Racing and the J. Sterling Morton Excessive Faculty District 201, did simply that by internet hosting the inaugural Morton City Equine Program – and it was an incredible success. All I might take into consideration on my drive residence to Kentucky was the way it was probably the most impactful outreach applications I’ve been concerned with for the reason that begin of Amplify.
Chris is president of the ITHA, led by government director David McCaffrey. David and IBCF program coordinator George Moreno reached out to me in February, in search of program improvement assist from Amplify, and we determined to sort out the challenge collectively. The ITHA crew offered the idea of internet hosting college students at Hawthorne to the college district, who jumped on the alternative to attach their college students with horses and advised the creation of a four-day summer season enrichment program. From there, the ITHA and Amplify labored on a schedule and syllabus of subjects and actions, and the college district dealt with the registration of scholars.
We had anticipated a comparatively small group for our first 12 months, and the ultimate attendance resulted in 5 highschool junior and senior ladies and their science instructor, Kyle Boyd. The scholars’ minimal prior horse experiences spanned from by no means having touched a horse to happening a leadline journey. All through the 4 days of the Morton City Equine Program, the scholars arrived on the ITHA workplace in a small bus and, for 3 hours, skilled the each day exercise of a racetrack firsthand whereas studying business practices, horsemanship, and utilized science. That they had the chance to groom a horse, feed copious quantities of peppermints to dozens of racehorses, journey across the observe in tractors, peer right into a scope at a horse’s respiratory tract, and even go on (what was for many of them) their first-ever horse journey. By day three, one pupil instructed us she was having a lot enjoyable she wished this system have been longer.
Instrumental within the success of this program was the real dedication and enthusiasm from the ITHA crew. David and George took energetic roles within the planning, and communication with the college district, in addition to the day-to-day instructing. Horsemen’s liaison Mena Perez even shared her very particular lead pony, Bandit, as our mascot and instructing assistant for every little thing from grooming classes to a check barn demonstration and pony rides. Chris Block and his assistant Martin Martinez brazenly shared their barn as a instructing area, amidst coaching and caring for round 35 head of horses. Chris served as an educator every day and invited the scholars to be a part of each step of coaching, from understanding the function of diet and the feed room to listening to the significance of hoof care whereas watching a horse get trimmed and reshod. His horses additionally obtained the overwhelming majority of the aforementioned peppermints.
To conclude day 4, we requested the scholars to finish a suggestions survey. Almost all of them conveyed that simply being within the presence of horses and getting to the touch them was essentially the most particular a part of your entire expertise. Additionally they mirrored strongly on how a lot they realized about racing, veterinary medication, and the good care they noticed the horses receiving. 4 of the 5 college students expressed curiosity in changing into veterinarians, and one particularly requested how she might pursue a job on the racetrack within the close to future. Most telling of all was the handwritten thank-you card the scholars handed over earlier than climbing again on the bus to go away the observe one final time. One message learn, “Thanks all for taking good care of us and giving us all these fantastic classes. It was a tremendous, enjoyable, unforgettable expertise that we received’t be forgetting any time quickly.”
There have been a number of moments from this program that can persist with me for a very long time: watching all 5 college students grooming Bandit and softly petting him as he munched grass; the laughter as they climbed into the beginning gate like assistant starters; the beaming smiles as they stepped down from the massive John Deere tractors after using across the observe; the even greater smiles as they sat tall on Bandit’s again.
The ITHA crew and I went into the week understanding that this system was a trial run, and would function a studying expertise for all of us. We got here out of it understanding that we had positively impacted the 5 teenage ladies who had attended. With out this program, these college students may by no means have had the prospect to actually be round horses. However on account of it, they skilled moments they are going to always remember. Racetracks have large potential to function facilities for studying throughout the communities the place they reside. In lots of extremely city and inner-city areas, racetracks are the one locations for miles and miles the place folks can go to see and presumably contact a horse. That’s definitely what Hawthorne is for Cicero.
At Amplify, our imaginative and prescient is to leverage the Thoroughbred business to attach youth, households, college students, and educators with alternatives to study and interact with horses. However as a way to make these connections, we now have to create the alternatives. The ITHA developed an unforgettable alternative by the Morton City Equine Program, and I’m excited for all the college students who will get to study horses and expertise the joy of racing as this system grows.
