I agree. I get the whole landscape of equestrian is small, but I also have not heard a ton about STUNT either as a d1 sport (I don’t mean that as a diss but a legit question/personal observation)? In a perfect world we could have both but personally something like women’s rowing going d1 seems more obvious?

Disappointing. I thought it was a classy part of our program. But I think I understand the point because the sport is going nowhere as far as the NCAA is concerned. Also it is a very expensive program to operate even with our Vet School footing a lot of the expenses. Stunt seems to me to be a very SEC oriented sport. I don’t see any other high level schools in the west doing this. I may be very wrong though.

After a great amount of thought and conversations with my owners, handlers, trainers, groomers, ferriers, and veterinarians, I have decided to enter the transfer portal. This was not an easy decision and comes with great appreciation for the entire Aggie community, particularly my stablemate, Gunrock. That community has welcomed me, supported me and believed in me from the time I was a young colt. I will always carry wonderful memories of the Davis experience down whatever paths I may roam.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this chapter of my life.

Happy trails to you,

Buttermilk.

I too have thought that the equestrian team was a unique part of UCD athletics. The program fits well with UCD's role as an agricultural college and home of a top veterinary school.

If a new sport is to be added I think crew would be a better choice than competitive cheerleading, er, stunt.

I agree that having an Equestrian team fit with the UCD heritage/culture, and I would love to have it continue.

Unfortunately, I also understand that Equestrian is an expensive sport to operate. In addition to the cost of scholarships, uniforms, coaching and support staff salaries, general equipment similar to all other varsity sports there are equine-athlete costs and facility costs. Just feeding one horse, depending on the price of hay, can $5,000 or more a month. There's also another $1500/month per horse for routine veterinary and farrier care. And there's no skipping on any of this if you want the horses ready for competition.

So I can easily see that the savings by replacing Equestrian with Stunt will be significant.

As I recall, one of the thoughts behind adding equestrian as a IC sport was that there was potentially big donor money involved--I wonder if that never panned out?

I think that when the sport was made a varsity sport at the DI level at Davis there was expectation that the NCAA would follow through and that it would become a true NCAA sport. That obviously never happened and probably never will. As previously mentioned, it’s way too expensive and very few colleges field an equestrian team, especially in the western United States. STUNT is a growing sport, but there are still very few colleges that offer it as an NCAA sport in California. I sometimes wonder why UC Davis is so concerned about compliance with Title IX while most all DI schools out west appear to care less about that issue.

I'm sure shells/boats are expensive and that tranpsorting them is also expensive, but seems to me that crew is popular enough on the west coast and would add enough numbers to the Title IX formula that it would be a better sport than stunt or field hockey.

All sports involve some judgment and some physical fitness, but I prefer the ones where the winner relies more on physical attributes which can (hopefully) be measured objestively rather than sports which are so reliant on the opinion of judges. The Olympic motto is "Faster, Higher, Stronger," not "Better in the opinion of some judges."

Having said that, gymnasts are some of the most physically fit athletes around, so what do I know?

The decision to kill the D1 Equestrian team in the middle of another competitive season is cruel. 40+ women athletes have to re-consider their options. In coming recruited Freshmen athletes have been left without a team. The Equestrian parents have donated the majority of the expenses yet the AD did not communicate with anyone until Friday evening. That is not transparency. The athletic program still continued to take our donations all the while knowing this cut was looming. This is misappropriation of donation funds and is a federal offense. Believe me the anger is there for a large group of athletes, parents and fans!

I feel you. This seemed rather sudden.

This looks like a troublesome situation.