.

Man, the equestrian parents are pissed on social media about this.

Starting that program in the first place was a big blunder. Someone over there deserves credit for the picnic day spring game plan.

That's been my feeling. The bigger mistake was starting the program, not relegating it to a club sport. It just rubs me the wrong way to listen to all of these parents claim the school doesn't support women.

Kudos to UC Davis for making an Athletics cut to trim the fat.

The Equestrian people have gone over the top. The amount of self-centered importance and entitlement is crazy to me. They are not interested in UC Davis the school all they care about is horses for their kids. I was talking to a parent the other day and they were over the top angry and wanted to just burn the whole university down for not letting their kids have horses. I don't get it.

These people have money and they are used to getting their way. They will not go away easily. But, eventually they will. Sad for all involved. Even the horses!

As a mountain biker, all of this is par for the course with entitled horse people that fight and sue to keep mountain bikers off "their" trails. This whole thing reinforces my negative stereotype of women who ride horses.

They've been pissed since the advent of the automobile.

I was thinking about my comment and specifically only calling out women. In my 20 years or so of mountain biking, I've never met an angry man on a horse. I've come across a few groups of guys at Annadel State Park who I'd describe as urban cowboys. But almost always it's women on horses. By far, the majority of those women have been wonderful people. But man, the angry equestrian folks are in a league of their own.

If Equestrian gets reinstated, I'll be standing up and applauding.

But... the constant trolling of Rocko DeLuca/UCD Athletics social media posts of what looks like a coodrinated crew of UCD Equestrian parents/supporters is a horrible look for them. Any UCD Athletics social media post right now... it's like "oh no... here goes another Equestrian related reply to it...".

They should focus on the playbook Concordia and Marshall did to reinstate their women's swim programs (none of which included trolling their athletic director/athletic department social media posts).

Concordia - Irvine. Interesting that they shelved the men’s equivalent but they don’t seemed to be reinstated. I guess title IX applies the the university side of this private school, separate of Christ College that produces church workers.

No insight whatsoever. Just saying if reinstatement is their goal, follow programs who were successful in getting reinstated and stop trolling/posting crap/mudslinging on social media.

Why should athletics cover trips to Georgia, Delaware, Texas, and South Dakota for what is already essentially a club sport? Can't be cheap to haul those horses cross country as members of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). The ECAC is sort of a loose configuration of "friends of the friendless" schools and offers sports at all three levels of NCAA competition. Ridiculous. If Davis was riding against 8-10 West Coast equestrian programs, I would get it. But it is a money suck for UCD.

Interesting Article

Equestrian doesn’t travel with their horses. Home team provides them free of charge. Now the quality of the horses is subject to valid questions. No one would doubt that UC Davis horses would be top of the iine, but some of these other teams I simply don’t know. Who else has a world class vet school looking over their horses?
Nonetheless, I think the elimination of the sport was a wise move. Yes, a large travel team, zero or very little fan support and a ton of vet care and farrier work was not a good selling point. A very expensive sport indeed.
I think if the administration is to be faulted for anything it would be why this sport was fielded in the first place. I don’t think they actually thought about it that much, though the rumor was that Stanford or maybe Poly would field a team if Davis did, since they have all the facilities in place to do so and the wealthy rider parents to help fund the entire process. Didn’t happen.
Rocko, go to court and take your punches, bit l think you should prevail.

I could care less about the equestrian programs. And this is coming from a person who likes horses and riding them. The Athletic department needs to direct 90% of funds and resources to getting football to FBS and competitive and getting Men’s Basketball competitive (competing for championships) Football and basketball drive revenue for schools.

The horses don't travel. Visiting teams use the home team horses. I'd think, Texas A&M, TCU, South Carolina, Oklahoma State, SMU - our non-conference opponents this year - have high quality horses in their stables.

The one complaint I've heard that, if accurate, would seem legit, is that the announcement came after other schools still offering equestrian had filled their recruiting classes for next year. So those kids who had accepted offers from UCD had nowhere to go. It was also my understanding that UCD wouldn't honor those scholarships, which seems out of character. I know UCD was honoring the scholarships of those students already on the team.

kids who had accepted offers from UCD had nowhere to go. It was also my understanding that UCD wouldn't honor those scholarships, which seems out of character. — TrainingRm67

This is the stinger.

college consulting report - scholarships for equestrian

The UC Davis Equestrian team has the equivalent of 5.13 full scholarships for roster of 41. Not sure how that is currently spread out amongest the current team, and how it was planned to be spread out for incoming freshmen/next year's team.

More money, for higher coaches salaries and more administrators, more facilities and debt, exactly for what purpose?

I feel bad for those riders that had accepted what looks like a partial scholarship, but that is an easy answer in financial aid with a grant or something.

How can you call it a "sport" when you're riding horses provided by the host institution? I'm sure there are standards that I am unaware of, and it's not like they're going down to the glue factory and saying, "hey, UC Davis is coming to town, give us some nags for the equestrian event!", but man, that doesn't seem right for the riders. Whatever, I could care less. I agree with Akiltopmack99, keep the money in the money sports.

Without getting into a much larger debate about what activities are sports and what are games (thank you Ken Purdy!), the "sport" aspect of equestrian is both the athletic ability of horse riding in general, but also the ability to communicate to/with the horse by body position shifts, rein position, etc to get the horse to do complicated things.

Just like good race drivers are fast in just about any car, good riders are good on totally unfamiliar horses.

I agree with you 100%. I feel the same way about rodeo athletes, both with two legs and four legs. They are both, absolutely very fine athletes with unique skill sets. I was being a smartass about it not being a "sport"; however, as you stated, there is a familiarity and degree of comfort in riding your own steed and not a stranger. It is similar to auto racing, but it is also true that big name race car drivers often get beaten on dirt tracks and small tracks all over the country when driving promo events. My guess is that 100% of equestrian athletes would take their horse prior to riding an opposing horse any day. It would be funny, and I'm sure it has happened, where they like the loaner better than what they have at home! Happens to me when I pick up rental cars sometimes

There is a whole world of equestrian folks out there. My daughter had her heart set on Davis because of the NCAA equestrian program (in addition to animal science). We are not rich (a few on here have alluded to equestrian folks being rich / spoiled). We don't even own a damn horse.

She's now got her heart set on Cal Poly and other schools in the west (the CP program isn't an NCAA program yet, but its on a trajectory to become one).

Davis is a self-proclaimed Ag school with the best Vet school in the nation. It is also destination for large animal (horses!) medical care for folks nation-wide. Its odd to me that a University like this does not prioritize a sport like equestrian.

I think odd is a great way to describe it. I feel like of all the sports to cut equestrian was surprising. I know that cuts happen, but it seemed surprising that was the sport cut. I think some of the reactions to the program being cut have been off the mark and unfair (although I completely get being angry if you are an equestrian team related person), but I would like the university to show more transparency (especially in response to some of the accusations put out against them when it comes to finances for example). I have not seen anything about Cal Poly moving to the NCAA?

I have not seen anything about Cal Poly moving to the NCAA? — Jdur

We toured their program last year. They mentioned working toward becoming an NCAA program.

Well the club team over there is pretty fantastic so that would make sense. I worry/wonder if the Davis announcement of dropping down leads other schools to follow.