Sarah Newell with her horses Diesel, Uno, and Doc
As you may or may not have heard
by now, we have an intern! Hailing from Sioux Falls, 17-year-old Sarah
graduated early from Roosevelt High School and started the Livestock Management
& Production program at Lake Area Tech in Watertown in the Fall of 2019.
This February, she reached out to us about interning at New Hope Horse Shelter.
Prior to joining us, Sarah
started volunteering at HorsePower (formerly Handi-Riders) at 9-years-old. In
fact, her own three geldings – Diesel, Doc, and Uno – are also resident
volunteers in HorsePower’s therapeutic riding program and her mother Shelly has
been their head instructor for the last two years. Sarah’s family also includes
an 11-year-old brother Caleb who lives with their dad Scott, a 27-year-old
sister Alyshia who is in the nursing program at STI, a young nephew Cole
(Alyshia’s son), several cats and an Australian Shepherd named Sky. Since
becoming horse crazy, she has tried what seems like a little bit of everything
– barrel racing, roping, team penning, dressage, and (most recently) jumping.
By now, Sarah’s been with us for
about seven weeks, so we decided to sit down with her and chat about her program
and what she has learned so far.
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Why did you choose Lake Area
Tech?
I didn’t want to go to a
four-year university, and I pretty much knew since my third semester of the
last year of high school that I wanted to go into Lake Area Tech’s Large Animal
Tech program, which has been combined with a bunch of other ag and livestock
programs to become the Livestock Management & Production program. Right
now, it’s pretty much background information. I’m learning about medicines,
wound care, hay, bugs… a little bit of everything.
What do you hope to do after
graduation?
I want to have my own business
being a farrier. After this program, I’ll take a 6-12 week farrier course, but
with all this background info, I could go into just about anything with horses,
cows, sheep, pigs, etc. A friend in Minnesota finished the farrier program this
winter and we’ve talked about possibly going into business together down the
line.
Tell us more about your
internship and its requirements.
There are no strict requirements.
It can be part-time or full-time, paid or unpaid – it just has to be with
animals and I have to show up. I’m the only person this year who is doing a
horse-specific internship.
Why New Hope Horse Shelter?
I wanted to do something related
to horses. A lot of the horse-related stuff is in Minnesota, though, which
would have been really expensive since the internship is technically only from
March through May. Margaret (Margaret Doom of HorsePower) actually told me to
contact Darci (Darci Hortness of New Hope Horse Shelter), and it just worked
out. Now I can live with my mom in Sioux Falls and it’s nice to be able to see
my dad on the weekends, because he works on the road during the week.
What have you learned since
starting your internship?
All this stuff is new, which is
nice. It’s a lot of riding and Reining and Parelli stuff. Different ways to do
stuff to help with certain things. The other day, Darci taught me some reining
maneuvers to help with the Sideways Game [a Parelli game]. It’s cool all the
things you can do with Parelli. I was trying to bring in one of the mares the other
day and she kept walking away, so I “disengaged” her [a Parelli maneuver] and
had her come to me. It’s also cool to be able to work on Parelli with my horses
because they’ve never really had much ground work done with them beyond the
basics. It makes it challenging. Like, what can I do for them to understand it
better? I’m all about the horses. Like, if I fall off, whatever. I’m like, “are
you okay” [to the horse]? Which my mom hates.
Do you have a favorite horse
you like to work with here?
Probably Spirit. I like Spirit.
Tell us more about your own
horses.
I got my Quarter Horse Diesel
four years ago from my old lesson instructor at CK. I was riding Diesel in my
lessons and my instructor wanted to sell him to buy a new horse, but I said,
“You’re not selling him, because I’m going to buy him!” We got Doc [Quarter
Horse x Thoroughbred] about a year later as a sort of confidence builder for my
mom after she had an accident. Then we got Uno, who is a one-eyed Quarter
Horse, about a year ago around Christmas because he was a good horse for
HorsePower and I wanted to get another horse, just because.
What is one of your favorite
things about horses?
How much you can learn from them.
They can teach you a lot.
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Thanks so much for reading! We
hope you enjoyed learning a little more about our intern Sarah, and we’re
excited that she is going to be with us until classes start again in the fall!
