Equestrian Experience

[wolfpackprevet]

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Hey y'all,

So this might have been covered already, but I couldn't find it anywhere else that really fully answered my questions. For all of you equestrians that are current or past applicants -- how are you counting your hours? Where are you drawing the line? What are you counting? Are you splitting it up into different categories of like owning, lessons, showing, etc? Sorry, that's a lot of questions, but I have no idea how to quantify it otherwise haha.

Thanks! 🙂

 

[Escalla]

With my own horse, I counted all of the different aspects involved with him into one line and went on to describe what that included. Training, showing, care-taking, etc.

If it was another person's horse that I was training for them, that was separate.

The equestrian team I competed on in undergrad was split up based on animal experience and leadership experience, but all of the animal experience (practices, shows, training, etc) was one line.

Does that make sense? Basically I didn't want to be redundant with my horse experience, so I split it up in less categories, but included all of my hours and made sure my description accurately explained what was entailed with those experience hours.

 

[gugoodoll]

I included hours when I was teaching lessons or volunteering at the school barn (exercising/schooling the lesson horses) or when I was a working student. I figured those were the most significant.

 

[OSUPreVet]

I counted all the hours and years I spent getting up at 5 am and caring for horses in a boarding facility as well as lessons and me volunteering with horses

 

[that redhead]

I made one big equine experience category and counted riding time (to include lessons), time teaching and any significant animal care (feeding, turn out, grooming, medicating, etc).

 

[equineconstant]

I had separate sections for riding and showing at home and riding in college since they were different "organizations" sort of, but no other distinctions.

 

[wolfpackprevet]

Okay. I know some people weren't counting time they just rode or cared for their horses, but I wasn't sure. I would really like to count it haha. I was a working student for years, taught some, and then competed on my own horse. Not sure how I'm going to approach it yet.

 

[deleted498041]

Hey! I have a lot of experience with this actually. I own four horses and have traveled and competed on the A and AA circuit for years. I participate in national competition and have actually been invited to NY and GA the last few years to compete. Basically, I have a ton of equine experience. I counted all of mine as just animal experience, since it's obviously not veterinary. I also explained it in the extracurricular section.
The caveat is the amount of hours. I believe I maxed out the VMCAS field, after calculating it and actually trying to make the numbers a little lower than they truly were. I would go to the barn for several hours, seven days a week, and horse shows were 14-16 hours days. It adds up. I had one university tell me it averaged to 40 hrs/wk which was completely unreasonable. So, just make sure that you calculate them correctly and explain what you were doing in that time.
Good luck!

 

[OSUPreVet]

Hey! I have a lot of experience with this actually. I own four horses and have traveled and competed on the A and AA circuit for years. I participate in national competition and have actually been invited to NY and GA the last few years to compete. Basically, I have a ton of equine experience. I counted all of mine as just animal experience, since it's obviously not veterinary. I also explained it in the extracurricular section.
The caveat is the amount of hours. I believe I maxed out the VMCAS field, after calculating it and actually trying to make the numbers a little lower than they truly were. I would go to the barn for several hours, seven days a week, and horse shows were 14-16 hours days. It adds up. I had one university tell me it averaged to 40 hrs/wk which was completely unreasonable. So, just make sure that you calculate them correctly and explain what you were doing in that time.
Good luck!

Uhh you lived my dream😍

 

[kittles]

great, then competed on my own horse. Not sure how I'm going to approach it yet. thanks

 

[deleted498041]

Uhh you lived my dream😍

Haha it was pretty fun! It's cool bragging rights to say I was mentioned in multiple press releases after big events. It's the only thing, right now, that makes me homesick.