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Western Equestrian Studies

Sophomore Year
Each sophomore is assigned an unbroke colt to work with for an entire semester. Each day is a challenge and helps to develop time management, as well as horsemanship, skills. The sophomore year is by no means easy but, it is very rewarding. 

General Info:

  • Students are assigned one unbroke colt to work with the entire semester.
  • Most colts are sent by outside owners. Very few are university-owned. 
  • First semester focuses on resistance free, natural horse training.
  • Second semester, colts are taught to lunge and line-drive before they are ridden.
  • Students learn diverse methods of horse training as well as obtain practical, hands-on experience.
  • Instructors are Steve Brown, Mark Smith, Jake Bowman and Linda Werst.

 Class:

  • Meets from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday.
  • Class is divided into three groups.  Each has a riding, showmanship and stall cleaning hour.
  • Group time slots will rotate biweekly.
  • Students are expected to work their colts in front of the instructors.
  • Five instructors are in the arena to help students. 
  • Demonstrations are given after feeding and cover techniques that are tested two to three weeks after.

Responsibilities:

  • Maintain the care, training and development of the assigned horse.
  • Morning feeding.
  • Stall cleaning Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
  • Work weekends - three per semester; paid; graded; students can pick the days they want to work; feeding, stall cleaning, various barn chores.
Semester Grades - compilation of class grades and barn grades:
  • Class grades are taken from attendance, riding tests, evaluations and riding finals.
  • Barn grades include stall cleaning, feeding, work weekends, taking horses' temperatures (required daily-can help detect illness), trailer loading, leg wrapping and body scoring.
Finals:
  • Held one week before campus finals; an outside judge is hired.
  • Conducted similar to a horse show.
  • Two to three classes per day for three to four days. 
  • Classes include showmanship, colt pleasure, colt horsemanship, snaffle bit futurity, hunter under saddle and hunt seat equitation.
  • To show in an English class, students must have ridden English two weeks prior to finals. 
  • Although the classes are judged and awards are given, the instructors grade each student individually and placing does not influence the grade.
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The University of Findlay