Team travel. On the surface it seems glamorous. You get to miss school? You spend the weekend with friends and horses? Fantastic. But, behind the scene team travel can be physically and mentally exhausting and emotionally taxing. 

Planes , trains, cars, buses and long hours with no breaks, and we are expected to be on our game for 10 hour days. When we are not competing, we are cheering on teammates and remain constantly supportive through the whole event. It takes a great amount of mental determination to focus on earning my point against the other team’s rider while also helping ensure that the other riders on the team win their points as well. 

Then, there is the actual schoolwork. I am a student before I am an equestrian, and I have academic responsibilities. I must work ahead on assignments because there is no time to work at a three-day meet.  Even during “free time” we are expected to focus only on the meet and supporting our team. For three days most students can relax and recuperate for the school week ahead. Instead, my teammates and I get back late on Sunday night, having started our day at 5am. 

Finally, there is the question of whether “equestrian is really a sport.” Some teachers don’t respect the sport, believe it is hard or even a real sport, and will make it even harder to catch up on material from excused absences. Even students in my classes are judgemental about equestrian sports, in their eyes sports are football, basketball, baseball, hockey because it is all they have ever experienced. If I was a football player? Well, that is a debate for another blog. 

But what teachers and fellow students don’t realize is that not only do we have to try our best we also have to work with a 2,000 pound animal, and make it do what we want, we only have 2 minutes to figure out its “buttons” and win a point for the school. All student athletes work hard to represent the red and blue colors, “Go Mustangs, Pony Up!”