Zoe Bowden

Getting on the plane to head home from Nationals I couldn’t have been prouder of my team. The four of us, and our exhausted coach were laughing, joking and stressing about getting back to our day to day life, yet we had just lost. 11th out of 12 at the Intercollegiate Dressage Association Nationals. So I guess we weren’t last, but still we had been nowhere near the other teams. It didn’t matter though, because that’s how collegiate riding works, there are some schools that focus more heavily on riding and it shows in the arena. Of the girls on my nationals team; one pre-vet, one aerospace engineering, one psychology, I am the only one studying horses. For most girls on our team, riding lessons were hard to work into the weekly schedule. As an equine science student, I got the chance to ride a little for my classes, but only western and only yearlings, and not at all to prepare for competitions.

I love my university and don’t regret at all attending the University of Florida, but when I was sitting in the stands watching the other schools compete I was struck by jealousy. I was jealous they got to major in equine studies with a riding specialization with multiple lessons a week as their CLASSES, I was jealous of their state of the art facilities, and I was jealous of their high-quality horses they got to use for lessons. They were nothing like the children’s ponies and ex jumpers our team practiced on. These were dressage horses.

Of course, as a die-hard equine enthusiast I had vaguely dreamed of one day attending just such a college, but the private school tuition topped with out of state pricing prevented me from actually going. Looking back, I’m glad because I’ve truly found my home in the Gator Nation, but as a frustrated high school senior the financial barrier felt like a familiar and frustrating Goliath.

Collegiate riding is all about accessibility. Its designed so that anyone, even if they’ve never ridden, can ride and show without having to own a horse or shell out loads of money.  I have seen truly beginner riders find their way and succeed in competitions in just my 2 years riding at UF. Our freshman Introductory level rider had never ridden English let alone dressage and ended up winning our region and qualifying for Nationals as an individual just this year. This was a huge deal for her, and she is just one of hundreds of riders who found a chance to shine as a collegiate equestrian. Yet despite all the good collegiate riding does, this is still the equine industry, and as anyone in the industry knows, money makes a difference.

I thought when I first joined the UF team that collegiate riding meant everyone was on a level playing field since the horse selection was up to chance, but in that instance, I was wrong. There are riders who have ridden dressage for years at Intro level competing against true beginners, and there are girls who ride Prix St. George competing against riders who just mastered a leg yield. The team hosting the show almost always wins because they know the horses, and the riders who attend private collages and major in riding almost always do better because they get the opportunity to ride more.

More than anything though, once I came to terms with my realization, I discovered that I didn’t care. I didn’t care if my school would likely never place well at nationals and I didn’t care if we had to recruit horses off craigslist when we hosted a show, because more than anything, collegiate riding is about having a team. It’s about being part of a group of people who all share the same drive and passion and who work together to make each other better, to develop as people and as horsemen.