by
blockandbridle blockandbridle
| Nov 24, 2014
Each fall semester one of OSU Block and Bridle’s biggest
events is the Showmanship Clinic that the club members put on for youth across the state of Oklahoma. The event this year took place on the second Saturday in November at the OSU Animal Science Arena. The club nominates and votes on chairman for each species group that will be taught at the clinic, which includes: cattle, sheep, hogs and goats. These chairman are in charge of getting together a “lesson” layout of what they will cover with their species participants as well as getting livestock lined up to be at the arena from either one of the university units or producers in the area. Due to increased participation over the past few years, we not only had one session for each species, but also added an additional afternoon session for each species. This allowed the youth who will be showing multiple species the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience on each species they plan to show this upcoming show season. To start the morning off we gave all participants a lesson on show attire and the dos and don’ts of what to wear in the show ring from head to toe. Following, we broke them into species group
s where we began covering everything from the parts of an animal, the breeds, feeding options, grooming techniques, and much more. Each group finished with a session over showmanship techniques. After demonstrating the different techniques ourselves and talking through the reasons behind each, we then had the opportunity for each participant to get to have hands on practice with the livestock we had provided. This year we had over 70 participants. This event has been in our club for many years, and our members truly enjoy the opportunity to work with the youth of Oklahoma! We are already looking forward to next year!
