Interested in horses and horseback riding? The Equestrian Team is the club for you! No experience is necessary because we welcome anyone with an interest in riding horses! You can even get P.E. credit depending on how many lessons you take or how many shows you attend.
IHSA Competitions
The RIT Equestrian Team is a member of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. We attend horse shows at Region 2, Zone 2 colleges, including Nazareth, Cazenovia, Alfred, and St. Lawrence University.
IHSA shows are a true test of horsemanship ability. When we go to shows, we ride the host school's horses. We aren't allowed to school/warm up the horses before our classes, we just get on and go! Horse and rider are paired up randomly, which makes all riders compete on an equal level (to a point).
The IHSA currently has two disciplines - Hunter/English & Stock Seat/Western. You can choose to compete in one, the other, or both, depending on how motivated you are to compete.
There are three levels that you will be accessed into at the beginning of the year - Novice, Intermediate, or Open. Depending on where you point into, you may start at basic walk/trot, walk/trot/canter, or low level jumping for hunters & reining patterns for western/stock seat. Riders move up through the levels by accumulating points by placing in the ribbons (which go to 6th) at each horse show. Points carry over from year to year except for the open riders.
Where We Ride
We currently ride at Lehman Farms for Hunt Seat, and Evergreen Stables for Stock Seat. You don’t have to have a horse to be on the team. In our lessons, we use the stable’s lesson horses so we do not get used to riding one horse. Lessons are usually $20-25 depending on how many people are there and how long the lesson is.
No car? No problem! Most of our members carpool to lessons.
Other questions?
If you have any questions, feel free to email one of the e-board members. Our email addressed are listed here.