Charlottesville High School has many clubs, sports teams, and activities to be a part of. Each of them offers different things to different students. However, one sport that gets overlooked is equestrianism. Horses have been seen by non-equestrians not as a sport but as an easy and/or fun activity, despite being in the Olympics for 120 years. One thing among equestrians that we all can agree on is that it’s a hard and demanding sport. If you throw homework and other after-school activities into the mix; things can be hard to manage.
I ride 3-5 times a week during the school year. This year, I have a senior release to get to the barn earlier, especially since we have hit daylight savings time. I also work part-time for my riding trainers. During the summer and on weekends, I would work about 4-6 hours a week including in the morning, evening, midday, and late evening. Now in school, I don’t work as often as I either don’t have time or the barn is fully covered. The show season has ended, with the last 2-3 shows finishing this weekend and the next. Even with no events, I still do late evenings on Mondays where I just spend an hour making sure the barn doesn’t self-destruct. I also will top off water buckets, pick out manure, walk the dog, water plants, do laundry, or clean up whatever is still left out after everyone else has left. On the weekends, I do similar tasks and in the evenings, I help feed and turn the horses out in the field. It’s a lot but pretty fun, and honestly, walking horses through our little wooded path to their fields is my zen time.
When I compete in the spring and late fall, I often do homework after getting home on Sunday nights. However, if I have to miss school to go to a show, then I will try to do my homework before I leave. Honestly, my homework is fairly light on the weekends so it’s usually not a problem.
All of this makes me manage my time and plan when to do my homework. If I am gone all day, that eliminates a huge chunk of my time. I have my 5th period in the library for study purposes, so I can have an hour in the library every day plus Tuesday and Thursday BKTs so that usually is ample time to finish most of my work during school. Sometimes I will have extra work to do at home but it’s not heavy. So homework doesn’t affect me too much.
Having horses can be a lot, as you have to take care of a 1200 lb animal. I have two horses so it’s double the work. However, I view it as a partnership that can last a handful of years. One of my horses I have had for seven years at this point and my grandmother’s town horses I have known for most of my life and I still occasionally ride them though not that often as they are getting older now. I think horses have made my time management better. Horses have changed the way my life works and I wouldn’t want to imagine life without them.
