Horse Party Supplies

It may not always be possible, but if you can arrange to take the birthday group for horseback rides, or to visit a horse farm, the kids will be thrilled. If you have a large yard, you may also be able to arrange a visit from a horse or a miniature pony. Even if the kids don’t get to ride a horse, they’ll be delighted to learn how to groom a horse, pat it on the nose and feed it a carrot!

However, if it’s not possible to arrange for an activity involving a real horse, there are still lots of exciting horsey activities that you can organize for the birthday party:

Horseshoe decorating: If you have decorated the party room with horseshoe cut-outs, set up a decorator station with stickers, glitter pens, stick-on gems and other craft items. Invite guests to decorate the horseshoes.

T-shirt decorating: Set up a horse t-shirt decorating station. The girls will love this activity, and it’s surprisingly affordable. The resulting t-shirt can also double as a wonderful party keepsake.

Buy some inexpensive plain white t-shirts in sizes that will fit the guests. Find a black-and-white horse clipart online. You can choose a horse head or a full horse clipart. Enlarge it as needed and print it out on your home computer using iron-on transfer paper. Iron the horse picture onto the t-shirts and set them aside for the party. Next, pick up some fabric paints from your local craft supply store or at Fabric.com. You can also look for special fabric decorating puffy-pens and any other easy-to-apply fabric decorations. On the day of the party, hand each guest a t-shirt and invite them to design their own horse t-shirt. Set up a table with all the decorating supplies they’ll need. You will probably need a helper to staff the ironing board, as the t-shirts will need to be ironed after being painted to set the colours. All these supplies are available at Fabric.com.

If you don’t have the time to gather all the supplies needed for the t-shirt painting actitivy, you can order pre-assembled horse figurine painting kits at Celebrate Express. Give each guest a painting kit and invite them to paint and decorate their horses. You could even have a contest and award prizes for the most realistic, most imaginative, funniest, etc.

Play “Rustle Up the Horses”: Hide little plastic horses all over the house and/or the yard. Tell the girls that 20 horses have “escaped” and that they will need to find them and bring them back to the corral. You can set up a little corral using a little plastic fence from the dollar store and a patch of Astroturf. Give them a little prize for each horse they “rustle up.” Prizes can be horse stickers, horse plush doll, keychains, horse-shaped chocolates etc.

Play “Horseshoe”: If the party is outside, you can play this game with real horseshoes and a stake driven into the ground. Whether you’re indoors or out, you can play with an inexpensive horseshoe game set like this one available on Amazon for under $12.

Play “Pin the Tail on the Horse”: You can find a “Pin the tail on the horse” game at a novelty or party supply store, order one from Celebrate Express online, or make your own. Cut out a silhouette of a horse and tape it to the wall (or tape it to a corkboard if you want to save your wall from pinholes), and then cut out some matching tails that the kids can attach with thumbtacks.

Play “Horse Races”: Draw an oval “racetrack” on a large piece of card, and draw in enough tracks so that all the guests can play at the same time. (If this isn’t possible, they can play in sets of six or so.) Now draw lines at right angles to the tracks at regular intervals, creating a checkerboard pattern. Set up a horse for each player at the starting line, and then have them roll a pair of dice to move their horse that many squares down the track. If they roll doubles, they miss a turn. Whoever gets all the way around the track first wins the game.

Play “Lasso the Horse”: This is a variation on the popular ring-toss game. You can use rings from a ring-toss game, or make rings from heavy tubing or rope. Clear a space in the room or in the yard and scatter small wrapped gifts within a certain area. Have the guests take turns trying to “lasso” a gift by throwing the ring over it. Make sure the rings are wide enough that the game is challenging but not frustrating. Alternatively, in place of wrapped mystery gifts, you could purchase small stuffed horses or horse beanie babies and have the kids try to lasso the horse they want. Check the dollar store for inexpensive mini-horses, or find them at Celebrate Express.