The junior year of the western equestrian program is exciting, educational and professional. Each day students work to further develop their training skills. The junior curriculum is focused on cutting, lead changing and training green-broke horses.  Each student is assigned three to five horses. The junior year allows students to begin to specialize and gives students the opportunity to request horses in a desired discipline, breed or training level.  Most horses assigned are owned by the public and the student is responsible for maintaining correspond-ence with the owners.

General Info:

• Juniors are assigned up to three outside horses, plus a lead changer and a cutter. Lead changers and cutters rotate bi-weekly.
• Instructors are Steve Brown, Clark Bradley, Art O'Brien, Meri Sheffler, Cindy Morehead and Jake Bowman. 
• Juniors share their riding hours with seniors.
• All students are required to have an annual equestrian physical before being allowed to ride. The physical form can be found using the following link: Equestrian physical

Class:

• Meets from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday.
• Demonstrations on Thursdays with a corresponding test two weeks later. 
• Juniors are responsible for developing and progressing each horse's talents in a timely manner. 
• Students are given a calendar for each month which will list days scheduled for cutting cattle, demonstrations, tests and evaluations.

• Juniors learn the fundamentals of cutting and lead changing and work to develop rhythm, cadence, collection and extension in all their horses.
• Second semester, juniors are required to train at least one horse on trail obstacles.
• Students are provided the opportunity to develop a Hunter Under Saddle horse as English lessons are given every Tuesday and Friday. These lessons also focus periodically on pole work and small cross rail jumps.  
• Students are required to check in upon arrival, arrange their own riding times during the four hours of class and are required to ride every horse they are assigned. 
• When seniors are testing in the main arena, juniors will meet in the classroom and discuss current issues in the horse industry, various training problem and solution techniques or up coming expectations of horses.

  Responsibilities:

• Maintain the care, training and development of the assigned horse.
• Stall cleaning Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
• Work weekends - three per semester; paid; graded; students can pick the days they want to work; feeding, afternoon watering; barn area cleanup.

Finals:

• Held one week before campus finals; an outside judge is hired.
• Conducted similar to a horse show.
• Three to five classes per day for three to four days. 
• Western Riding is required; trail is required second semester. 
• Classes also include colt pleasure, colt horsemanship, colt reining, colt western riding, open pleasure, open horsemanship, open western riding, Hunter under Saddle and Hunt Seat Equitation.
• To show in an English class, students must have ridden English during designated English lessons throughout the semester. 
• Although the classes are judged and awards are given, the instructors grade each student individually and placing does not influence the grade.