PDA

View Full Version : When is NDSU going to add equestrian



89rabbit
04-26-2004, 07:44 PM
So, when are the Bison going to add equestrian?

http://diaafootball.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=sdsuetc;action=display;num=108256473 0

Go State!

Herd_Mentality
04-26-2004, 10:32 PM
The rumors have been there for awhile, and it makes sense...

roadwarrior
04-26-2004, 11:44 PM
The new NDSU horse barn located next to the new race track is a step in that direction.

Bisonguy
04-27-2004, 12:19 AM
Hmmmm.....

http://www.northdakotahorsepark.org/index.php?action=page_manager_view_single&page_id= 9

A goal of 100 days of Equine events a year at the North Dakota Horse Park.

IowaBison
04-28-2004, 01:25 AM
I don't know if you guys are into horse racing at all, but it's a hell of a good time. My wife and I have gone to the races in Des Moines and Minneapolis a couple of times.

89rabbit
04-30-2004, 03:04 PM
Great story in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader today. Here is part of the story, it is kind of equestrian 101.

http://www.argusleader.com/news/Fridayfeature.shtml

The equestrian alternative
Chris Solari
csolari@argusleader.com

published: 4/30/2004

Instead of cutting a men's sport to meet gender-equity standards,

South Dakota State University will offer an unusual opportunity for women.

University says sport fits in athletics, academics

Katie Morris tends to her chestnut brown quarter horse with utmost care. She rides Tiny Sunrise with power and grace.

By the time she is ready for college, the equine skills the Washington High School junior grew up learning for fun could land her a scholarship at South Dakota State University. When the university announced it was creating a varsity equestrian team, she took notice.

"My mom wants me to stay close to home," says Morris, 17, who displays her horseback skills in regional equestrian competition. "I was thinking SDSU, the University of Minnesota or Black Hills State. Now that they've started equestrian there, I'm leaning more toward SDSU."

That's the type of response school officials in Brookings hoped for when they decided, after four years of discussion, to add the sport. It's a step to help compliance with Title IX regulations requiring schools to offer athletic opportunities for men and women that reflect the gender ratio in enrollment. SDSU's program begins in fall 2005, which would be Morris' freshman year.

Equestrian is attractive to schools because it can have a roster of 50 to 100 women - one of few sports comparable in size to a men's football team. . . .

SDSU will give five scholarships for the sport in 2005 and hopes for three times that many by 2010. An average squad of 60 riders is expected, but the school wouldn't mind seeing more.

Athletic Director Fred Oien says the program will cost $400,000 to start, with money for new scholarships coming from the school's fund-raising campaign to move to Division I. The school's athletic budget, $4.3 million this year, is expected to increase to $6.8 million by 2008. . . .

Equestrian competition is not horse racing or rodeo. With a variety of jumps and related moves in managing a horse, it's a sport that rewards fluid motion in moving from a walk to a trot and a canter. Competitors are judged not so much for speed as for mastery of traditional skills of riding.

School officials hope it will add a unique stamp to an athletic department now joining the nation's largest universities in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

"South Dakota and Minnesota have significant horse populations," says Rob Peterson, assistant athletic director at SDSU. "In the long term, I think South Dakota State could become a major player in equestrian because there are not very many schools close to us that offer it."

SDSU's current equestrian club is part of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association, which formed in 1967 and has 300 schools and 7,000 riders. The university becomes the 38th school to promote the sport to varsity status, the 15th in NCAA Division I.

The NCAA does not yet offer a championship in equestrian. That will require 40 schools with varsity programs. Schools now compete for their own unsponsored title.

College equestrian differs from the Olympic version. While Olympians are judged solely on how their horses perform, collegiate riders are also judged on positioning and posture atop the horse and control of the animal.

Riders offer two styles in competition - English and Western. English involves more jumping of gates and obstacles. Western has a skill called reining, which tests a horse's speed and agility and a rider's ability to maneuver the animal.

"The NCAA is trying to have this be a continuation for those riders who do have the aspiration to go on to Olympic and international competition," says former Fresno State coach Megan McGee, a consultant for SDSU.

NCAA schools do not travel with horses. Host schools of competition provide the animals. Riders enter a blind draw to choose their horses, to keep things fair, with each participant using an unfamiliar animal.

Still, the team will need horses on campus so athletes can train. Oien says the optimal number is 30 to 35, with the university adding 10 to 12 a year. An SDSU graduate has offered to donate some animals. . . .


Go State! ;D