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Ahead of the National Championships in Waco April 18-20, the 8-3 SMU Mustangs are back in the top 10 in the latest NCEA coaches poll!

1. Georgia
2. Auburn
3. Oklahoma State
4. Kansas State
5. TCU
6. South Carolina
7. Baylor
8. Texas A&M
9. South Dakota State
10. SMU

But there are only 18 d1 teams...?

Top 75%

Our more accurate mission: Avoid the bottom 25% in all we do.

So do they jump over things or race or what?

College Equestrian is judged as equitation, which means that unlike most horse show competitions, the rider, rather than the horse is evaluated. This elminates the variable of knowing the horse (they draw blind lots for horse assignments) and attempts to judge the horse handling skills of the rider exlusively. However, this is subjective like ice skating and diving.

The riders are grouped into whether they are Hunter/Jumper (English saddle) and/or Western Saddle and then assigned to various experience levels from Novice to Intermediate to Open (most experienced). Lastly, some of the events are either Flats (no jumping) or Over Fence (Jumping).

Teams can be either be Hunter Jumper (SMU today) and/or Western (SMU intends to add this discipline) and should have sufficient riders for all experience levels. In training, they typically utilize known horses that are owned, leased and/or loaned to the program. For Horse Shows, the objective is to ride an unknown horse and proceed directly into the competition ring without any warm-up or practice.

Probably supplied too much information, but good riders tend to excel in equitation vs. checkbook horse shows, where the horse is the most important element.