Anyone buy a horse during college or leave one at home during college? I would love to hear everyone’s experiences.
For 2 years I attended a community college walking distance from my house and my self board barn and kept up with my horse. When I transferred to university across town and started living on my own I retired my horse to a field. I thought I would retrieve her after my life was settled but I ended up living an urban life, working overseas, going back to grad school. She was 29 (I think, maybe older) and I was 38 and in a PhD program in another country when we put her down. She had a long peaceful retirement!!
I returned to horses when I was in my 40s and had a full time tenure track job.
I don’t regret the gap. I would never have been able to do everything I did with a horse. Jumping into campus activities paid huge dividends in lifelong contacts and friendships that paved the way for adult accomplishments.
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younger daughter we found it was cheaper to keep her horse where she went to school, so he was shipped down there to be with her
older daughter we kept her horse at home while she was in school in Virginia, there she was able to take “Riding” as her PE requirement, she did so every semester for the four years
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Someone asked this same question fairly recently. You should be able to find it with a search.
I left horse at home during college, and tried to ride on vacations. My father wouldn’t let me ride my freshman year, as he liked to put it “your job is school.” I came home the next summer and had a disastrous show season and sold horse. Eventually quit riding for 17 years.
If I could do it over (and was allowed), I would have brought horse to school, or at least found a way to ride during the school year. We didn’t have an equestrian team, so that option was out.
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Did she go to VI? Thats where I went to college!
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Had horses and rode through 10 years of undergrad and grad school. Worked 30h a week in addition and it was fine. It’s worth it for the stress relief alone. I usually gave them 3 weeks off around finals time in undergrad and same around super busy periods in grad school. I was only horseless one year where I left them at home and it was incredibly miserable.
she went to Randolph Macon Woman’s College when it was a woman’s college…she was on academic scholarship…they recruited her as they wanted students from Texas
Got a great education as most of her class sizes were very small, her upper level chemistry classes had four students being taught by PhDs (as was nearly all the classes)
Her first job out of college was in a quality control lab of a pharmaceutical company , she had to stop her trainer to tell them they were calibrating the testing equipment incorrectly …her collage lab had the same tester so she knew how to calibrate it… the lab sure didn’t… she later was promoted to Training Officer of that company at age 24 over many who desired the position
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I’m currently in college and was able to keep my horse at home. I’m a little under 2 hours away so I get to the barn 3-4x a week during the semesters so I’m not sure if that really counts as leaving my horse at home since it’s not too far.
However, I think it would definitely be hard to buy a horse during this time since I’m pretty busy and getting to know a new horse would definitely be a different scenario. I’ve had mine for quite awhile now which helps me work around not being there daily.
I had horses at home for the first year of college and then moved them to the town where I was attending college. Then I got into vet school and had sold one of the two horses I had in college only to trade the other for a classmate’s horse (she wanted a broodmare and I wanted a horse to start) so it worked out. I have never been without a horse but there were definitely times in my life when my horse or horses didn’t get as much attention or work as I would have liked.
Depends on who is motivated to do what. My young friend who learned to ride on my horse was definitely young. She turned 17 a couple of months after she graduated from high school. She had a very nice Mustang mare. I guess the family thought she should head right off to college. So they packed everything up and arranged to have horse transported. She went to Lexington KY. and was on college’s equestrian team.
The horse part was great. She spent time at the Kentucky Horse Park as a volunteer. Watched the Rolex and got me a hat. Had a few lessons with a former Olympic team rider and Chef d’equipe for the UK dressage team.
The thing is the credit hours:. None. Zero. Nada. She is smart, but she hates to read and study. I’m not sure what family expectations were, what with her managing to graduate from high school without distinction. She can go to college any time. She will know when she is ready.
She is a good rider. She went down to Wellington as a working student and stayed with that barn for 2-1/2 years. At the moment she is packing up for Wellington again, this time as a groom for an Olympic dressage rider.
She said today maybe she shouldn’t do this. She is 24. Absolutely she should take this opportunity. She agreed she didn’t have to be young to go back to school. She wants to be a nurse. The shortage of RNs in this country is so extensive she won’t have a problem if that is what she really wants to do.
Are you going to college with your horse by your side? Is your goal to graduate to pursue a career in your chosen field? It can be done. How about leaving the horse home for freshman year? You can figure out whether it will work for you. It also can get you off to a good start academically.
I bought my first horse in my sophmore year of college, lived with a boyfriend in an apartment, went to college full time, worked a part time job, worked off my board, and showed in the intercollegiate circuit.
The only mistake was the boyfriend and a degree I never really used.
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I kept horses while at college, but I was able to afford to do so by having my college completely paid for with a grant due to not being a dependent, by buying an older manufactured house and getting a roommate, and my truck was already paid off. I also worked FT at the barn where I kept my horse and was able to flip ponies to support myself, and they stayed there free if they could be used in the very active lesson program. So basically I worked myself to death doing FT school and FT barn employee, got hurt a lot on some of the rank horses the BO bought and wanted me to majikaly turn into w/t lesson horses, and I weighed 106 pounds at one point (my healthy/thin weight is 135 when I was running half marathons and raking up about 35 miles a week plus weights, my healthy/chubby weight is 150). Yes I nearly starved to death.
So, I mean, you can do it. I don’t recommend it though unless you are coming into it with financial and emotional support from parents willing to pay board and etcs while also paying for school in whatever fashion you’ve agreed to at the same time. Are you someone who can do it and keep grades up? I have no clue. I got a degree in English, which is stupid easy for me, it’s like giving a dog a degree in bone chewing, so I dedicated a heck of a lot more time working than I did schooling and walked away with a 3.5+ GPA. I took my classes all day either MWF or T-TH only and worked the other days plus Sat at the barn, and Sunday was my study/write papers/laundry day unless we had away shows, which were generally only in the summer and only a couple of them. In the summer I ran back-to-back summer day camps and rode after, attended shows on the weekend, gave lessons, pulled manes, body-clipped, did bandage wraps etc for boarders who couldn’t make it out, and I stored up money like a squirrel storing nuts for winter.
Yes. I think it is going to depend on where you live and how much parental support you have.
Best case scenario would be your horse and life is fully funded and you can board on campus or you are in a small college town with farms nearby, and your parents pay for your car expenses. Then you can ride when it’s possible and give horsey a break over exam week. But what do you do with horse during summer and Christmas vacations? What if you want to do an internship or travel or get a job in another city? It’s still limiting.
Only the very hardy can manage to self fund active riding and self fund their college too. You don’t want to be racking up debt for the horse.
Also the amount of hours and personal difficulties of the course work matter. I too flew through my English undergrad but complicated things by getting really involved in student newspapers, which was actually a very good thing for my personal development employability and future career moves. I couldn’t do that and ride. I would not have developed as much by sticking to my introverted teenage horse life.
That was the only school that recruited me!!! I didn’t go, as I was adverse to attending a “woman’s college”. IIRC, I was recruited for both academics and my riding. How did your kid like it?
I think most of us can say the same!
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This is VERY true. Some majors are easy, mine was not (microbiology). I had a lot of course hours and a lot of TOUGH courses (O-Chem, anyone?). If I had chosen another major, I probably would have had more time for horses.
when she came home for the first Christmas break she found out what other colleges were like while talking with some of her high school friends, one whose intro Chemistry class Chem 101 had more students in that class than were at RMWC … her Chem 101 class had about 20 being taught by a PhD
She did learn
Also the school was set up for one to obtain the degree in Four years, unlike some of her friends who took five or six years
She did take Riding every semester rather than having her horse there (her mother took over the horse using it in competitive trail)
I went to community college for my first year - maintained straight A’s, worked full time, and rode.
I transferred to a traditional 4 year school my soph year and left my horse home on lease. The trainer that I had ridden with my entire LIFE went against the lease agreement and I finally pulled the mare and moved her to school with me.
My best friends from college are all horse friends, and I’m 100% convinced the only reason I made it through school was because of my mare.
I am very lucky that my parents were very $$$ supportive!
