Every athlete has a love and passion for their sport. Some love their basketball, some love their football, and some love their golf club. For these students, they love horses.
The BGSU Equestrian Team [BGET] is one team of 40+ students divided into two discipline teams; a Western team and an English team.
“It’s great. The numbers have increased tremendously for both teams this year,” said English coach Jill Jewett.
Along with the other hundreds of organizations on campus, any student at the University can join BGET.
“We currently accept anyone on the team,” said Elizabeth Schoenwitz, the president of BGET and an English and Western rider.
If anyone is interested they can contact the President or Vice President at the beginning of either fall or spring semester and they will connect you to the captains and the coach for an evaluation ride.
“At this point in time we do not have any tryouts to be on the team,” said Schoenwitz.
BGET competes through the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA).
Both teams compete in several shows over the course of the semester.
At the shows, the English team rides a style called hunt seat equitation. There are riders that compete in both jumping and on the flat, meaning they do not jump, but we strive to have all our riders jumping in their lessons.
The Western team rides a style called stock seat, also known as horsemanship. In competition, Western does both pattern work and rail work, which is riding individually in a pattern versus as a group along the rail.
These two styles ride in different apparel and with different equipment. The horses are typically different between the disciplines as well.
Riders are judged on their ability to execute their given task such as jumping or going through a pattern and their position while doing this. To add to the challenge, they ride the host-school’s horses, which the riders have never ridden before that show.
“We do not get a warm up on our assigned horse, we just get on and go,” said Schoenwitz.
Jamie Wlosowicz, a freshman from the University has been a long time lover of horses and plans to join the team.
“I grew up riding horses and I was weary of joining the equestrian team because I have never ridden in a competition before. But now that I know that the coaches will help you, I may join the team next year,” said Wlosowicz.
The University’s Western team is finished for the season but the English team has a show during the weekend of March 1 at Lake Erie College.
“We currently have 12 riders qualified for regionals. If a rider places first or second in their division at regionals then they will proceed to zones and possibly nationals,” said coach Jewett.
If you would like to come cheer on the BGET, regionals are at the University of Findlay on March 15.
