Before this year, enrollment in our summer camp was cutthroat. 

Just days after I’d post the registration form to our website, my mailbox would be flooded with completed paperwork and deposits. It wasn’t uncommon for camps to fill in just a few weeks’ time, with waiting lists of half a dozen campers hoping for spots. 

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we adjusted schedules, socially distanced and mandated masks, we filled each camp we were able to run. 

But we’re halfway through the 2025 summer camp season—in our third of six week-long programs—and not a single camp this year has filled.

Last year’s registration was slower than usual, but by May, only a handful of spots remained across six weeks of camp programs. 

This year, a few camp weeks have come close to filling. Registration forms trickled in throughout the spring, and I’ve filled spots up to the night before the start of a camp week with parents looking for last-minute opportunities for their kids. 

Our pony camp (a morning-only program for campers ages 4-6) maxes out at 24, but we ran earlier this summer with 16. That deficit alone amounts to a few thousand dollars that our program counts on to hold us over in the slower winter months, or to put in our emergency fund for when one our lesson horses tries to implode. 

Due to some family obligations this summer, we had to schedule a camp over July Fourth week—the first time in almost a decade that we’ve held a camp over the holiday. We only filled 17 of 36 spots in that particular “horse camp.” Offering longer days for slightly older campers, horse camp’s higher cost meant the low enrollment was an even tougher loss to swallow. 

I don’t think it’s personal. Our regular lesson program has a wait list of over 300 prospective students that takes years to get through. We pride ourselves on offering high-quality programming to our students and campers. 

I also don’t think our program is alone in feeling the crunch this summer, at least in our part of the country. We are located in a suburb north of Pittsburgh, and half a dozen horse friends within an hour’s radius have noticed similar decreases in camp enrollment. A group text thread in late spring confirmed that most of us were seeing a decrease in camp enrollments of 25-50%. 

Camps in New England are seeing a similar trend, according to a June article in the Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts) about programs in that area seeing fewer campers and later sign-ups.

“I don’t have the data yet, but it seems like it’s shaping up to be a really unusual year,” Michelle Rowcliffe, the executive director of the American Camp Association New England, told the paper.

Does the decrease have anything to do with America’s current economy? Perhaps.

In May, Bankrate.com released its 2025 Discretionary Spending Survey, a poll of 2,500 Americans, that reported 54% “say they expect to spend less on travel, dining out or entertainment” amid economic uncertainty and fears of a recession.

As expenses in the horse industry increase, a decrease in summer camp enrollments will be detrimental to the programs that depend on the income to bridge the gap over slower months. I know we’re already brainstorming for how to make up our loss, and it’ll take some creativity and careful budgeting to stretch us through next winter. 

A silver lining, perhaps, is that the campers we’ve meet so far this season have been the most interested, enthusiastic, horse crazy kiddos that we’ve seen in years. 

In previous summers, there were a handful of kids in each camp whose choice it clearly wasn’t to be at the barn. 

Previously, it was common for parents to send a less-interested sibling along with their horse-crazy child just for the experience (and let’s be honest, for a few precious hours of peace at home). Or, parents use camps as child care, filling their children’s schedules with a variety of summer programs to keep them busy, whether the interest was there or not.

Sometimes those kids come to appreciate our sport, but often they were the campers who proved to be most difficult during any given week.  

But this year, at least so far (and maybe I’m cursing myself for the three weeks we have left), our campers are the most universally horse-crazy I’ve seen. And perhaps it’s because the kids who are making it to camps this year are the ones who really want to be here.

We have a set of sisters who have been coming to our camps for almost a decade. This year, for the first time, only one enrolled. 

At registration this week, their mother said the girls each got to pick one camp to attend this summer, and the other sister was really excited about softball camp with her friends. I told Mom to send her a hug from us and the horses, and I wondered how many other families were having their kids make the decisions on where to spend the family’s smaller entertainment budgets for the summer. 

So while we try to figure out how to make up for this year’s summer camp deficit, we’ll at least enjoy the campers who are, as a whole, a bit more excited to spend their summer with us. 

Sarah K. Susa is the owner of Black Dog Stables just north of Pittsburgh, where she resides with her husband and young son. She has a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Allegheny College and an M.Ed. from The University of Pennsylvania. She teaches high school English full-time, teaches riding lessons and facilitates educational programs at Black Dog Stables, and has no idea what you mean by the concept of free time.