Camp Provides Youth Inside Look At Harness Racing

Camp Provides Youth Inside Look At Harness Racing
Camp

BERLIN – Several local children got their first glimpse of harness racing last week at a unique camp offered at Ocean Downs.

Ocean Downs, the track located on Route 589 in Berlin, hosted a Harness Horse Youth Foundation (HHYF) camp for area children June 26. The kids spent the day learning about the sport and even had the chance to sit in the sulky with a professional driver.

“It gives them an introduction to something they know nothing about,” said Ellen Taylor, coordinator of the program. “Horses are great teachers. They can get life skills working with them.”

More than a dozen children listened intently to Taylor as she instructed them on how to handle the horses — actually child-sized ponies — and what various pieces of equipment were used for.

“We put them right in the stalls and they learn how to put the harness on,” Taylor said.

The participants were given pointers by Taylor’s teenage assistants — members of HHYF’s leadership program — who have all completed one of her five-day harness racing camps.

Delaware residents Austin Stafford, 13, and Jeff Kidner, 15, said they enjoyed sharing their knowledge of horses with the less experienced children.

“It’s fun,” Stafford said. “You get to do hands-on activities with horses.”

Kidner agreed, saying, “You get to learn new things and you get to practice doing everything yourself.”

After campers learned the basics of horsemanship, they had the opportunity to meet a handful of the drivers who regularly race at Ocean Downs. With the adults’ help, they were able to get into the cart to take the horses on a trip around the track.

Jason Thompson, a driver competing at Ocean Downs this summer, said he hoped the camp would generate interest in the sport.

“I agreed to help with the camp because as a person who makes my living in the harness racing business we need to get more youth involved or there will be no one to carry on,” he said. “I enjoyed it a lot.”

The HHYF has been in existence for more than 40 years. For the past 16 years, Taylor and her volunteers have spent their summers on the road, offering camps at racetracks throughout the country. The one-, two- and five-day camps are designed to introduce children to horses and harness racing.