Message from your President:

Happy New Year to all !!!

Welcome to a new year and a new decade. The time is going by all so fast. I remember when I was way younger and thought that I would be SO OLD when the calendar over to 2000. Well, that ship has sailed and I don’t know where the time went. I am sure many of you feel the same. 

December was a busy time. We had a good turnout for our shopping meeting, even though, we had a snag on our location. I know I managed to buy up some items. We had our day ride at night with the caroling on horseback, although we really did not do any singing. Everyone got caught up in enjoying the refreshments that we forgot to sing! There were 55 horses on the ride and 2 hay wagons. It was one of the biggest caroling events they have had in years. And the folks at Sun Lake really took good care of us. 

Our party on the 18th had 50 folks attending and everyone brought animal food. Our elves took over a ton of food to Lake County Animal Control the next day. I was thrilled with the outpouring from our members. It was just awesome. I hope everyone had a great Christmas. The day after many of us headed up to McCulleys for a great weekend of camping. We had Ron, Libby, Sue, Jordan, Liam, John, Leslie and Gary, Line, Lisa, Andy and Sue, Jerry and Dee and Linda C.  Let me know if I left anyone off the list. The McCulley weekend recapped our busy Dec. Now on to our New Year….

The New Year’s Day ride will be at the new Santos Trail Head. We will ride to the Landbridge TH where the club will provide lunch for all the riders. Then we will ride back to the Santos TH. We will take a detour to the Land Bridge for those who have not ridden over the bridge. It is a fun experience and a good place to take pics. 

We will have a campout at Shangri-La over Jan. 17-19. Everyone needs to make their own reservations at this primitive campground. Our next day ride will be a fun day at Jackie Richie’s Magnolia Oaks Ranch on Jan. 25. She will have arena games set up for anyone wanting to play and we will also have a trail ride for others. Should be a fun day. 

Hunting season ends Sunday, Jan. 5, and it was pretty much an uneventful season for all.     

       I have the dates for Camp Boggy Creek family weekends and they are Jan. 18, Feb. 22, Mar. 28 and April 4. I hope you can help out with some of these weekends. It means so much to the kids to be able to ride a horse. Danielle Doorneweerd, coordinator, sent me an email with this very nice message: “Thanks again for your partnership. I am very grateful to your leadership and help with ATR and Camp Boggy Creek. It has been like night and day as far as the number of people helping and the quality of horses we are getting there at Camp. Thanks so much”. The credit goes to you, the membership and your dedication to the kids. You all have some great horses. Let’s make their spring a good one.  Please get out and volunteer if you can. Call Danielle, 407-529-4538, to add your name to the list of volunteers. 

          And Rocking Horse Stables has their first Winter Horse Trials on Jan. 24-26. They need all kinds of volunteers for this event. So, call Allison if you can help, 407-766-4183. They will feed you and I for one, will work for food!!!    

Sunshine Committee

Both Linda Campagna and Dee Shepherd are back in the saddle and were at the McCulleys campout enjoying the trails. It was good to see them out and about. 

Please keep two members in your prayers. PJ O’Neill is in Duke University medical center in North Carolina undergoing testing. She potentially has a very serious condition. As we find out more, we will let you know. 

Cindy Sunday is in the hospital and will be undergoing heart valve replacement. This is a serious situation but she is in good hands at Florida Hospital. Please keep both of these ladies in your thoughts and prayers. They are both long-time valuable members of ATR and we need them to regain their health.