The excitement about the University of Wisconsin-Platteville Equestrian Club becoming an official Equestrian Team is evident as they practice for their next competition.
The Equestrian Club was started four years ago, and has been striving toward becoming a team ever since the beginning.
Club president Sara Pearson was one of the original founders of the club, which has about 20-30 members this year, 11 of which are team members and attend competitions.
Since the Equestrian Team was founded this year, they have not yet received SUFAC funding.
The team must fund themselves to go to competitions and shows.
Since there is no official funding source, they have asked Joy Carr, a local stable owner, to use her horses and arenas for practice in exchange for cleaning her stalls and giving her horses some exercise.
They also found trainer Lerin Hendrickson to come and volunteer her time, once or twice a week, to help them prepare for competitions.
“Having practices and getting on horses that you aren’t familiar with really has been helping to get ready for competitions,” sophomore team member Rachel Peters said.
Hendrickson was also one of the original founders of the club and graduated last year.
She now juggles her full-time job, along with helping out with the Equestrian Team practices.
“I was a part of the club, so I want to help however I can,” Hendrickson said.
The club offered to pay for her gas to travel from her home in Madison, but Hendrickson refused.
Based on few resources the team has compared to other collegiate teams, Hendrickson is happy they have come this far and performed this well.
Eventually, she hopes the team will be able to hire a full-time trainer to be able to devote their time to the team, as well as the horses.
This last weekend was the first competition that the Equestrian Team got to compete at, and club president Sara Pearson could not be any more proud.
The English show was in West Bend on Oct. 27, which had a total of six riders from UW-Platteville.
There were a few third place ribbons, and a fourth place and fifth place ribbon.
Also, the Western show was held on Oct. 27 in Twin Cities, Minn.
It had a total of four riders attend.
There was a third, fourth and fifth ribbon given away at that event.
“I think, in the future, it will be a draw to high school students looking for a college that has a [equestrian] team,” Pearson stated when asked about what being an official team means for UW-Platteville.
For this club, becoming a team is something that has been a journey, but judging by the progress they have made, it was well worth it.
