Jennifer Ridgley (left), head coach of the Delaware State equestrian team, and Kamerra Brown, one of the first five riders in the program and coach of the hunt seat team. Credit Carlo Holmes
Twenty-four United States colleges and universities have equestrian teams. Seventeen of those teams are in Division I schools. Only one represents one of the country’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): Delaware State University in Dover, DE. That fact is both a challenge and an opportunity, according to Jennifer Ridgely, the team’s head coach.
Ridgely’s story will be familiar to anyone who has ever been obsessed with horses. “I showed as a small child, on the quarter horse circuit,” she says. From western riding to all around, her life revolved around horses. “Then I went to college and started the first ever equestrian team at McDaniel (College, in Westminster, MD).” While in college, she started competing in rodeos and eventually became a professional barrel racer. Then came marriage and kids and a business called Wicked R Western Productions, in Camden, DE. At Wicked R, other horse-crazy people can enjoy trail rides, overnight dude ranch camps, hayrides, etc.
Opportunity Knocks
Delaware State University established the women’s equestrian team in 2005, as part of a settlement with the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), to bring the University into compliance with Title IX. In addition to mandating equal access to educational resources, Title IX requires colleges and universities to provide both males and females equal opportunities to compete in college athletics.
“The history is we had an athletics director who was brought in to solve the problem of Title IX,” Ridgely explains. “He is the one who said, ‘let’s start an equestrian team’. Lucky for me I was a professional in the area and had a business in the area and was able to get involved.”
Ridgely was part of the search committee created to recruit a coach for the team. The first coach lasted only a couple of months. It was then the University hired Ridgely for what was a daunting task. “No riders, no tack, no horses,” she says. “We had to start something from nothing.” She has been leading the Lady Hornets team in Dover for 14 years, and marvels at how the program has grown. By any measure, it’s extraordinary. From five riders and horses to 40 student athletes and 40 horses, along with two coaches—one a western and one an English coach—Ridgely says they recruit across the US and even internationally. “We have twins coming from Spain next year,” she says.
Challenges Abound, Too
“Most people are shocked that an HBCU has an equestrian team,” Ridgely says. “I love knocking down those kinds of barriers.” But it turns out those barriers are stubborn, not easily broken and demand innovative solutions. Consider the numbers. The University’s website lists 40 women on the equestrian team. Of those, three are Black. Ridgely says that efforts to recruit Black equestrians to the school have been thwarted by several factors, not the least of which is the dearth of applicants, compounded by the reality that opportunities for Black girls to start riding in their pre-teens and throughout high school are tenuous at best.
“We have to do more about getting young girls to start at a young age,” Ridgely says. “This is a more difficult sport, but that doesn’t mean it has to be impossible.” Inviting children to learn tennis or soccer is significantly less resource-dependent than inviting them to learn to ride horses. “It’s not necessarily that we as head coaches are not recruiting. They’re (the potential recruits) not out there.” She sees this as an opportunity—and a demand—to radically shift the paradigm.
Ridgely has been reaching out to other HBCUs, encouraging them to create equestrian teams. “We try constantly, but the numbers are just not there. Trying to find AA riders who want to come to Delaware State is difficult.” At other HBCUs, struggling with other priorities, she says, “I don’t even think equestrian sports are on the table.” She says part of her mission is to persuade other athletic directors to think differently about collegiate sports. She has been inviting diverse equestrian groups to join virtual panel discussions about ways to get more girls involved in equestrian sports and the kinds of infrastructure and support systems necessary to support an emerging cohort of equestrians.
Money Changes Everything
In April 2010, Delaware State University tried to eliminate the school’s equestrian team as a means of cutting costs. The team filed for a preliminary injunction to compel the school to preserve the team. Delaware State University attorneys then agreed to keep the program alive for the 2010-2011 season. Simultaneously, 15 student athletes filed a class action suit against the school, arguing that eliminating the team would violate Title IX. The school’s consent that would keep the program going for another year achieved part of the objectives of the class action suit. In October 2010, the class action suit was settled, and the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
So, as the pandemic has altered everyone’s plans, Delaware State University still has an equestrian team and Ridgely says that they have 62 student athletes on the roster for next year. She is still busy directing the program and fulfilling the strict NCAA rules for student athletes.
“Most people don’t know about our sport,” Ridgely says, “but we follow the same rules as any other Division I team.” There is a team that rides English and a team that rides western. “The Equitation team competes on the flat and over fences. The western team competes in horsemanship and reining.”
She says the athletes can bring their own horses and pay board, or “they can let their horse be in the program and we pay for its board and its care; and we get to use it as part of the team for practice.”
There’s rigorous practice, rigorous study, and the philosophy that “we always say academics first, athletics second.” She says that the team works out three times a week on strength and conditioning. And every equestrian has a lesson three times a week. “There’s a mandated study hall, mandatory workouts three days a week, mandatory riding three days a week,” she says.
The barn is in Felton, several miles from campus. The team leases space on the farm, which is a standardbred facility. “The girls love being here,” she says. “They get away from campus. Anyone who loves horses would rather be there than anywhere else.”
The team was recently ranked among the top ten in the National Collegiate Equestrian Association (NCEA), although competition for this year has been disrupted by the pandemic.