Equestrian in the City

Almost every little girl asks for a pony at some point in their childhood, but for some horseback riding is there whole world. Jennifer Neil, Senior at UW-Milwaukee, started riding horses around 12 years ago. She said, “Just the thrill of it. It’s a lot of fun.”

Starting out with just taking lessons as a kid she was able to train her own horse by the age of 16. Neil bought her first horse, Ivan, who was a Friesian sports horse. Having this as a background she started showing, but she wasn’t the only one.

UW-Milwaukee Equestrian Club hosted their first show Oct. 26-27 through Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA).

UWM’s Equestrian Club was founded by a grad student in 2006 with the motivation to give students the opportunity to have a safe equine community no matter how much experience they have. President of the club, Jennifer Neil, said, “We cater to everybody whether they have been on a horse or not.”

There are 16 members on the team who competes and according to Neil it has grown every year from 5 to 8 to 12. Their team competes against other colleges in the region including UW-Madison, UW-Lacrosse, Notre Dame, Augustana, and Ripon.

Neil said, “We are from Milwaukee. We’re from the city. We’re not that well known.” Being a University from the inner city it is surprising to find that there is an Equestrian Club on campus. It may be even more surprising to find that members have lessons and some see the coach a couple of times a week.

“It’s a bit of a drive, but we make it wok seeing we’re in the city,” said Neil. The team travels out to Hartford in order to practice on the five horses that their coach provides them with. This may not be adding up five horses to 16 team members, but it turns out at the shows they don’t have to bring their own horse to compete.

At an IHSA show the team shows up and starts out by watching the horses warm up in the morning, and then it’s a draw. Before they get there they have no idea which horse they will be riding, and they have to pick a horse’s name out of a hat in order to find out.

Neil said, “When it’s your time you go to the horse, you get on, you a just your stir-ups, and then you ride in the class. You don’t get to know the horse beforehand. You don’t get to warm up yourself. It’s just get on and go.”

The two different competitions that happens at a show are “Flat and Over Fence.” Over Fence is just like anyone imagines it to be and that is jumping over fences, which is an English style of riding.  Equestrian is a style of riding that is English, but a focus on the position while riding.

“You know shoulders back, heels down, stuff like that,” Neil said.

The competition started the first week of October with UW-Milwaukee having their first show.  They held the show in West Bend co-hosting it with Ripon College. Neil said that they had to rent a barn and an arena in order to host the show, but that wasn’t the biggest challenge. They had to find enough horses to borrow for the show as well.

As a sports club program at UWM they were able to receive funding through the school, and they were able to borrow 22 horses in order to put on a successful show.

Last year the team did very well with 4 girls going to Regionals, 3 girls going to Zones, and 1 girl going to Nationals. The season for the team has already ended with a show at North Western and the competition season will continue again starting with a show in Madison in March.