Take A Ride With Augie’s Equestrian Team
For the past two years, I have ridden on Augustana’s Western Equestrian Team with the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. It has been on this team that I have met some of my closest friends from college, ridden some amazing horses, and gained so much experience with handling different horses in a show arena. It is through associations like this that equestrians can experience what they love while gaining show experience and horse time as well as pursuing their degrees and completing their studies.
Being on the Equestrian Team, I have traveled to several colleges, shared a hotel room with my teammates over the weekend, bonded over different rides, showing experiences, and the overall love of horses and sport of horse riding. We have 4 shows during the Fall and Winter terms, one at Truman State, and the other three at Blackhawk College’s East Campus.
The way IHSA shows work is that you are put in a class and division based on where your skill and show experience falls on a form you fill out at the beginning of the show year. For each division, there is a certain pool of horses that you draw randomly from at the draw table prior to your class. The classes are: Beginner, Intermediate I, Intermediate II, Novice, Advanced, Alumni, Reigning, and Open class. To point out of classes, you must gain 36 points, which you do by placing 1-6 in the class. 6th place is one point, 5th is two, 4th is three, 3rd is five, 2nd is six, and 1st is seven. These points also carry over year after year.
I ride in the Novice class, which has a pool of horses with a difficult skill level. Prior to showing in IHSA, I only showed Western Pleasure, which is a slow and easy speed for riding through the gaits of walk, trot, and lope. The first time I showed in IHSA was at the Truman State show during Fall term and I drew a reigning horse. That was the first time I had ridden a reigning horse, let alone that particular horse. Since then I am proud to say that I have grown and become more aware and adaptable to riding different horses with different training. I hope that as I continue to compete in shows that I will gain more confidence and become a better rider.
