serious question for equestrian aficionados: any chance the support is ever included in the NCAA Director's Cup list of approved sports? I mean they got rowing, rifle and bowling....why not equestrian?

probably because it is not an NCAA sport yet. rifling and rowing are NCAA sports.

ok......what's it take to become an official NCAA sport? is this something BB is pushing for? National Champs today in western...I'm just sayin'....

there will have to be 40 NCAA Division I/II schools in order to make it a real NCAA sport - there are currently just 23.

http://www.varsityequestrian.com/about.html

We won National? Really? All RIGHT!!! There was a snippy little article in the Waco paper about how they beat us yesterday. Hah! Of course they did. It was their stupid horses. I would like to see the Ags host Nationals someday. With the new Brazos Expo, is that a possibility?

Come on, English classes!

Bucket - you're showing your ignorance here, but don't let that get in the way of a good rant.

Seriously, I AM really ignorant, but doesn't the host school provide the horses? I am always open to being taught. Please explain.

The horses are supplied by a neutral source. None of the riders have horses they're used to.

Also, that Waco Trib article was snippy and it pissed me off.

Naturally, we kicked ass in Western, which is my personal favorite.

If it did become an NCAA sport, would there be two separate directors cup listings for western and hunter or would they just have the overall standings?

[This message has been edited by nereus (edited 4/19/2009 3:52p).]

More than likely just one championship combined but as far as points go a 2nd place finish in Director's Cup scoring is generally quite generous. No one may remember who loses the Super Bowl or the World Series but the Director's Cup gives points as deep as 65th place in some sports.

http://www.nacda.com/directorscup/nacda-directorscup-scoring.html

[This message has been edited by Kline7 (edited 4/19/2009 4:01p).]

There are 23 DI and DII schools right now. There are 15 or so DIII schools that also have it but for some reason they don't count towards the 40. If the NCAA would push for them to count, there would likely be an NCAA Championships REAL soon after that. The Big 12 finally went ahead and recognized equestrian just this year. Equestrian is the largest 'emerging' sport on the NCAA docket by a longshot.

Because of the size of the national championships, many of the schools competing brought horses, including A&M.

Maybe the fact that DIII schools don't count has something to do with the lack of formal athletic scholarships.

I doubt it. They can still win a DIII NCAA Championship right?

Not a NCAA championship since the association doesn't sponsor equestrian. That's a really good question.

The A&M Equestrian team took the A&M Rifle team's NCAA support. We, on the rifle team, had scholarships and everything, and then, in the 1980s, the Equestrian team gained NCAA status while we lost ours.

The reason? More girls on the Equestrian team, and the school needed to spread out its NCAA sports scholarships.

Athletics didn't sponsor equestrian until 1999...equestrian did not take the place of anything.

...and my earlier question was a DIII NCAA titles in other sports, not equestrian (obviously equestrian can't because they aren't at championship status yet)

[This message has been edited by Look Out Below (edited 4/27/2009 12:37a).]