It’s a Monday afternoon, and you see a girl power-walking through O’Neill Plaza. She’s wearing tan pants with patches inside the knees, and tall black boots. Your first instinct: Wow, what a fashionista! But then, you realize that she probably rides horses.
The equestrian team at Boston College, otherwise known as BCET, falls into the category as one of those obscure groups that no one really knows about. Everyone knows that we ride horses, but if I were to ask most people what we do exactly, I would be met with blank stares. As a proud member since freshmen year and secretary this year, I’m here to tell you what we’re really all about (no, we do not race horses, thank you very much).
BCET was founded in 1993, and today we have over forty members with many others expressing interest. Contrary to popular belief, our team is coed and we have two very lovely boys on our team. We are exceptional in that no experience is needed to join the equestrian team! We take everyone or anyone who has a passion for horses.
Members attend one lesson per week to perfect their riding skills and form bonds with the other people in their lesson. BCET rides at Saddle Rowe, located about forty minutes away in Medway, with our trainer and coach Cyndy van der Meer.
“There are usually about 5 people in a lesson, and we ride horses provided by Saddle Rowe. Sometimes we even switch horses in a lesson in order to get comfortable riding other horses. Last week, I rode a horse named Hash Brown who happened to be a huge horse with a super sweet personality,” says Brittany Bachant, our president.
Our riders are responsible for getting the horses ready for a lesson, such as grooming and tacking them up (putting the saddle and bridle on). Afterwards, we need to make sure that they’re cooled down, which sometimes involves hosing them off. While proper horse-care is a big emphasis of our team, it also gives us an excuse to spend more time cuddling with ponies.
Our team attends four or five horse shows (our version of a competition) each semester against schools in the greater Boston area under IHSA, or the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. There are several divisions within IHSA, depending on your level of riding. These divisions can be on the flat (walk, trot, and canter) or over fences (over jumps). Each rider draws a horse out of a hat, and then they have to get on and go straight into the ring to show it in front of a judge!
Kelsey Kunes is our vice president for this year, and she handles our horse shows. “Our competitions are really different from most of the other club sports. They’re called shows, and we usually bring about 12 riders to each. You don’t get to practice or know the horse at all because you just have to hop on and ride, which is pretty hard to do! We had three riders qualify for regionals last year, and we definitely expect to send even more this year!”
When we’re not at the barn or at the show, BCET gets together for team dinners and other fun social events. Because we don’t see each other all the time, it’s very important for us to continue to build team unity.
I hope you’ve learned some new horsey lingo and are now inspired to drop everything and hop on a pony. Check out our website and come to our shows! We would love any and all the support we can get. And we’ll even let you pet some horses.
Photo Sources:
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/ath/equestrian/photos.html
Ana Driggs