Texas Tech horse judging team takes top honors
Texas Tech's horse judging team ranked first in the nation at the 2007 Arabian National Championship Oct. 27 in Albuquerque, N.M. Teams from 13 other universities and junior colleges, including Colorado State University and New Mexico State University, competed with Tech at the contest, which required teams to judge sets of four Arabian breed horses.
The event hosted by the Arabian Horse Association, said Kris Wilson, the team's head coach and an assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences.
First-Place. Along with the team's first-place win at the Arabian contest, Jennifer Richards, a senior psychology major from Richmond, was the highest scoring individual at the contest, winning a custom saddle and $750 scholarship, she said.
The process of judging horses involves insuring the animal fits its breed's character type, and the horse's balance, structure, muscling and sex characteristics, Wilson said. Though Tech's judging team has been around since the early 1980's, Wilson said it does not regularly compete at the Arabian National Championship.
"There's not going to be a whole lot of Arabian horses in Lubbock," he said, "so I prepare them mainly with DVD's and videos, and then we went to the national show a day early and watched classes from the stands."
Tightly-Knit Group. Richards said she attributes Tech's first-place win and her personal ranking to multiple 6 a.m. practices and the team being a tightly-knit group of friends.
Because the team placed first at the Arabian show and second at the American Quarter Horse Congress earlier this month in Columbus, Ohio, Wilson said a first place win at the American Quarter Horse Association World Championship Show Nov. 14 would give Tech the national title.
Though Richards is a psychology major aspiring to be a nurse, she said she has ridden horses and entered competitions all her life, and is only working on a minor in animal sciences to learn more about horses.
"I decided, as much as I would love to go into the horse business, I can't make my hobby a job," she said. "That's my hobby, that's my true love and that's my passion, and I want to keep it that way."
The Arabian Horse Association is an organization with 46,000 members that hosts numerous competitions across the country according to its Web site, www.arabianhorses.org.
Written by Adam Young/The Daily Toreador
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