The UW equestrian team doesn’t have a coach, or horses, barn, or an arena of its own. It doesn’t have any designated trainers or lessons for riding. It doesn’t schedule regular team practices, either.

“We’re just a club sport and we can’t afford it,” said Helen Speidel, the vice president of the team. “So we all kind of ride wherever we have connections or where [we] grew up riding or wherever [we] can get on a horse. Everybody just tries to get in rides where they can.”

In contrast, Oregon State University, UW’s regional rival, has a varsity equestrian team that can afford everything.

“They are the top dogs,” team president Joanna Dove said. “They win every single year. They have no contenders. You could, at the beginning of the show season, say the OSU team is going to win and you will always be right.”

Despite not having the adequate funding for the team, the UW equestrian team of 35 riders still manages to do well in Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) competitions.

“We have the riders to beat OSU, we just don’t have enough riders,” Dove said. “Our girls consistently beat their girls — it’s just you have to go to every single horse show, and we can’t always do that. This year we set the goal of [giving] OSU a run for their money. I want [the team] to be competitive and I want to try and beat OSU even though I know it’s a high standard.”

The IHSA is a nonprofit organization that provides college students and alumni with the opportunity to participate in horse shows regardless of financial status or riding skills. IHSA represents more than 6,500 riders in colleges throughout the United States and Canada.

Riders qualify for the National Championship Horse Show through a point system, according to the IHSA Web site. During the year, contestants accumulate points at local shows to qualify for the regional finals in their respective divisions.

Top competitors move forward to the zone finals or semifinals, depending on their riding discipline (English or Western, respectively). The top riders from each of those competitions then qualify for Nationals.

During spring break the team sent three riders — Dove, Courtney Littlefield and Rebecca Slingwine — to the Western Semifinals at the West Texas A&M University’s Horse Center in Canyon, Texas.

Last year, Dove qualified for Nationals and placed third in her class for Western horsemanship. This year, Littlefield placed third in her class for Western novice horsemanship and qualified for Nationals at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, Calif. in May.

“Our Western team was really close to beating OSU, which is a big deal because they’ve won for years,” Spiedel said. “So just to be able to come in with a smaller team and be competitive [means] we’re really growing as a team.”

Both Dove and Speidel are competing in the Zone 8 Championship at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls, Idaho this weekend.

Speidel competed in zones last year and won in her class for English novice equitation on the flat, a type of competition judging the rider’s in the seat, but did not do as well at nationals.

“I’d been busy with finals and papers and stuff like that, so I hadn’t been practicing as much as I should have,” she said. “This year is going to be different, though. I’ve been practicing a lot.”

Dove is optimistic that the Western team will do even better next year.

“My goal next year is to beat OSU and send our whole team to semifinals, and I definitely think it is attainable,” Dove said. “I know it is. We can do it.”

[Reach reporter Sara Bruestle at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.]