Lucky Shoe Riding Club hosts a grand performance 

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Photos by Marie Mccolm The Lucky Shoe Riding Club hosted a grand performance at 5701 CR 2 South on Saturday, Oct. 29. Groups of children within the Riding Club performed with their horses, wowing the crowd with different riding stunts and different riding control methods. The Lucky Shoe Riding Club was started by Courtney Logan during her junior year in college. The grand performance on Oct. 29 was also a fundraiser for the club.

MONTE VISTA — The Lucky Shoe Riding Club hosted a grand performance at 5701 CR 2 South on Saturday, Oct. 29.

Groups of children within the Riding Club performed with their horses, wowing the crowd with different riding stunts and different riding control methods.

The crowd cheered as the children came out in their multi-age groups as their horses pranced around, showing how they had trained their horses to follow each step around buckets, cones, and poles, and to follow each other in a circle in the arena.

Agent for the club, Courtney Logan spoke about how the Lucky Shoe Riding Club first got started.

“It started off when I was a senior in high school,” Logan said. “I would do pony parties. So, I bought a miniature horse and started doing pony rides. After that, I had a couple of students start taking riding lessons. I did that for a couple of years, and then I noticed that a lot of kids just didn’t have any horses of their own. So, I saved some money and bought a few lesson horses, and I officially started the riding club, my junior year in college.”

Logan talked about how she sees a certain number of students every day of the week now from 5-7 p.m. She said that smaller group numbers make it easier to give the kids riding lessons.

Logan said that children can take individual lessons, they just have to book all lessons online.

Logan also stated that the group does not only hold riding lessons, but it also hosts a 3-day camp during the summer months. Logan said that the camp is not just for members of the riding team, as other students are welcome to register and attend.

“We get kids from all over for these camp outs,” Logan said. “We usually host about 30 kids. The kids, of course, are taught horseback riding and we also do a lot of other fun things, too.”

Logan said that the Riding Club is about showing kids how to have fun and enjoy horses and helping them celebrate when they accomplish something, too.

“We give our students awards for so many things that they do,” Logan said, “As an example, we gave out an award to a girl for being the toughest. This girl fell off her horse several times, but always got back on, and didn’t quit; we awarded her with the toughest award.” 

Logan spoke about how some of the kids are involved in their 4-H program, and rodeo program, too.

“We have a 4-H program. We have about 30 kids in that program, that is where the kids compete at the San Luis Valley Fair,” she said. “The kids can do horse riding, show riding, and showmanship. We also have a rodeo team, for the kids who are interested in rodeo. We just haul all the kids to the rodeos everywhere. A lot of the kids start off using our horses, then they eventually get their own.”

Logan said they buy about 10 horses at the end of spring.

“Our intern students get the opportunity to decide what horse they would like, and then they get to try out a horse all summer long,” Logan said. “They get to ride the horse and see if they want it. I decided to start this program to help students get a horse of their own to show students how to work for a horse. “

Logan said one of the biggest reasons she decided to buy lesson horses was to allow students to learn on them.

“Some of the kids in the club would go out and get horse and not really know how to buy them,” Logan said. “The horses were hard, they would buck the children off and everything. For me, buying some horses for the program was an easy solution to that.”

The show on Saturday was held to show off what the children have been learning at the Lucky Shoe Riding Club, and a fundraiser to help purchase a bigger area for the club.

“We performed in an arena that we rented on Saturday,” Logan said. “We are really hoping to have a bigger place for lessons someday, and that’s the reason we had the show on Saturday.”