Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Once you get the kids there, so long as there isn't a negative experience, it doesn't matter much what your activities are. The key is that they should all be 100% fun & safe. You want everyone to feel like they can trust you and the horses.

To get people to the horses, you need to go where the kids (and their parents) are. If you're doing this now (during the summertime), then co-market with day camps (offer to give them a % of the sign up, or pay a flat fee to allow you access to their e/mailing list, or hand out flyers at the end of the day, etc.). During the year, you'd approach local schools.

For more guerilla-like approaches, team up with an ice-cream truck. Ride a horse in front of the truck in the neighborhood. Hand out flyers, etc.

Dear McDonnellhorses

I’m going to ask my daughter, (Gabby) to see if she can give you some insights into this question. Although three of the four of us ride (My wife used to represent her University at show jumping and eventing) she is incredibly close to what turns-on young people to horse riding or equestrianism as we call it over here!

Steve Alker

Hi there McDonnellhorses

My name is Gabby and as I’m a young person with a horse already maybe I can give you some ideas which would appeal to young people. I guess you want to attract people who are really interested in learning to ride and learning how to enjoy it, rather than children who don’t give a monkeys or who might not really care about horses and riding!

There are two really fun aspects to riding. On is learning not to fall of the horse (!!!) whilst still enjoying yourself and the other consist of things like grooming and looking after ponies. I know a lot of girls who would spend all day looking after horses if they could, but they are not very good at riding.

Lots of people here have said that it is a safe thing to do. Well, it can be, but if children are going to learn to ride and if they are going to enjoy themselves, there are risks like falling off and ending up in the poo! Riders should wear body protectors and hard hats, but that’s all part of the fun and the image. Sometimes it’s the image which gets children into riding and they learn to enjoy the bumpy, bottom hurting bits later!

Quite often, children think that riding is as easy as sitting on a horse but I can tell you that it is not. That’s half the fun, the difficulty. To become any good there are lots of things to master, but learning to do them should be fun. When you are five feet off the ground on something weighing a ton and it has no way of stopping apart from you and your reins, it’s quite scary.

I think that’s the difficult thing to get over. Horse riding isn’t a fairground ride – it’s more exciting than that and once someone has overcome their fears or the idea that they won’t like it, it is really, really fun. One way to get this over in your open day is to have lots and lots of young riders around who are enthusiastic about their riding. Get them to show new kids how to mount, to tell them good things in the saddle and to let the visors try the most exciting things possible without letting anyone get hurt. And have them show visitors how to groom a horse. Most girls and loads of boys secretly wish to get the chance to groom a fine pony.

Don’t con anyone and that’s children and parents. Horse riding is great, great fun and it is exciting, but its such a lot of fun because there are some risks involved. The newcomers won’t be exposed to many of these, but they shouldn’t be given the idea that horse riding is without its spills and dangers!! Sometimes, controlling the danger and getting on top of fear is one of the biggest thrills.

I hope you have a good day


Gabriella Alker (Age 13)

Play horse shoes, of course.
You could have a manure shoveling contest (maybe not).

The first thing that came to mind for me is food. When hosting any type of open house you should always provide some kind of snack. People tend to congregate when there is food. You could also get creative with the snacks like cupcakes with horeshoes on them or something to that effect.

I agree with T-squared to an extent, you need to make sure that you don't cater only to the children because it is in fact the parents that will be doing the most work (paying for lessons, driving them to classes, etc.) I would suggest creating a basic brochure that includes information for the parents and then maybe have one for the children as well with a coloring page or something on there.

As far as games, if you were planning on having any, you could also play "Pin the Tail on the Horsey". Here is a link I found for ideas on activities:

https://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/ActivityBooks.html