It was a sunny Friday afternoon, and the first order of business for one group of University of Memphis students was to catch their horses for class.
According to Elizabeth Earhart, U of M horseback riding instructor, rounding up a horse is fairly easy. Some are harder to catch than others, especially if they’ve been ridden a lot, but that can usually be remedied with a little bribe food.
“Horses have little friends and little cliques,” Earhart said. “If you’re looking for one horse and you know the two or three he usually hangs out with, it makes it easier to find them.”
Every Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, students gather at Old West Stage Coach Lines Inc., a privately owned equestrian facility located in Oakland, TN.
The commute to Oakland is about 30 minutes from campus, and well worth the drive according to some of the students taking the class.
Lee Howell had never ridden a horse before the class, but had always wanted to try it out.
“This is the best class I’ve taken so far,” Howell said. “I love being outside, love the country, and I’ve grown to love horses now.”
Howell said he plans to continue to ride after the class is over and may help out with summer horseback riding camps.
Earhart, who has been teaching the class for four years, holds a great passion for horseback riding, something she has been involved with since she was a little girl.
She said she gets so much enjoyment from teaching the class that she doesn’t even want to take time away to have her baby.
The enthusiasm of Earhart can be seen in the faces of the students as they warmup in the ring, listening carefully to the guidance she offers.
Earhart teaches basic Western riding, which consists of walking, trotting and cantering and she makes it a point to explain how to deal with every possible situation at the beginning of the semester.
“A lot of people that take this class have had a horse run away with them, and they just didn’t know what to do,” Earhart said.
One of the first things she teaches is how to handle this by pulling the horse’s rein into a tight circle.
The horse has to go where its nose goes, Earhart said. By forcing the horse into a circle, it will eventually stop as the circle gets smaller.
Learning horseback riding requires understanding and appreciating the horse’s personality.
Earhart said a giant horse named Turbo gives one of her male students a hard time, but cooperates for her four-year-old daughter.
“When my little girl comes out here, Turbo knows that he better behave or he’s going to be in big trouble,” Earhart said. “They know what they can get away with and what they can’t.”
Each one has its own quirks and disposition, according to Earhart.
Students in the class run the gamut in regards to previous experience, Earhart said.
“It’s the bell curve,” she said. “There are very few that have a lot of experience and very few that are totally clueless.”
Lisa Hailey had a bad fall on a horse before enrolling in the class.
“I was real scared after that,” Hailey said. “I came in here to kind of slowly get used to them again.”
Sometimes students get really interested in horseback riding after the class and go on to take private lessons to specialize in a specific area.
“I feel like I’ve given them kind of a lifetime activity,” Earhart said. “It’s great to introduce someone to something they can do afterwards.”
