A lot of children—girls especially—go through what the scientific community calls a "horse phase." During this period, a child becomes almost dangerously obsessed with horses. There are horse posters, horse books, horse movies, horse toys, and at least three hours a day spent begging the parents for a horse. The luckiest of children will be signed up for riding lessons and become the envy of their peers.

Usually, a horse phase only lasts a few years, much like a mermaid phase or a Star Wars phase. After a while, horses go out of style and are replaced with some other obsession. But for some people, the horse phase never really ends. They just get more and more serious about horses. They ride and compete regularly and get pretty darn good at it. And when it comes time for them to go to college, they get super excited about the fact that the NCAA offers equestrian scholarships.

For now, anyway.

Yes, Shmoopers, it's sad but true: the NCAA is considering dropping equestrian as a sport (source). Equestrian was only added to the roster as an emerging sport in 1998 (source), and it's already being put up on the chopping block. What gives?

The truth of the matter is, equestrian is not a popular sport, in large part due to the cost. If you ride horses, you don't need to be told how expensive it is to own one. Keeping a horse fed, housed, and healthy is a huge financial investment; keeping it, and yourself, up to competition level is even more so. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars here (source).

Horse owners say that's money well spent. They also say that they wouldn't mind if it were just a little cheaper.

That's where NCAA scholarships come in. Just like football, basketball, baseball, and swimming, the NCAA will help pay for your sport while you're at school (source). If you're a swimmer, that means providing a pool. If you're an equestrian, it means providing a magical windfall the likes of which you may never see again.

Wouldn't it be great to have somebody provide you with a horse and cover the cost of feed?

Yeah, we think so too. Hey, less money spent on tack means more money spent on new barn clothes, right? Or, you know, textbooks. Those aren't cheap either. Although, $500 for textbooks is chump change compared to $5,000 for a hunter saddle from France. College is really expensive. So is equestrian. Y'all need all the help you can get.

The obvious solution is to rob a bank.

Unfortunately, it's really hard to get your hands on one of these magical windfalls. There are only 23 colleges in the USA that currently sponsor NCAA equestrian teams—17 fewer than what's needed to promote it from "emerging" to "championship" status (source).

As if those odds aren't bad enough, each school can only give out 15 scholarships between Divisions I and II (source), and not all of them will be full rides (sorry).

It's an equivalency sport, which means the school only has so much money and it decides who gets how much. The amount of money a college has to give depends on what it spends on its other sports and on what other scholarships you're getting (source).

And trust us, you're going to want some other scholarships, because with a sport this unpopular, you won't be able to pay off those college debts with the endorsements for sneakers and energy drinks you'll get post-grad. (You didn't forget how much college costs, did you? Big bucks.)

So not only are these magical windfalls we call NCAA scholarships hard to get, but they're not guaranteed to be very big. Sorry, you won't be throwing money around like Tony Stark anytime soon. You also won't have an awesome flying suit of armor equipped with mini missiles and a sassy AI. Life is so unfair sometimes.

There are some other things that might make the NCAA equestrian life seem unattractive. For one thing, the life of an NCAA athlete is not all riding horses and braiding manes. It's heavily scheduled, with mandatory team meetings, study halls, workouts, and more. There's not a lot of time left over for things like clubs, friends, and relationships.

If you just said, "I don't need a relationship—I have my horse!" then give yourself a gold star. That's the right attitude to have when it comes to the NCAA. Sports first. Academics also first. Everything else second.

If you just said, "Wait, sports and academics first? You can't have two things first," then give us the gold star back. It's no use hiding it behind your back. We know it's there.

We don't care how nice it looks on your grandma's tree. We want it back. (Source)

Sports and academics are equally important. Student-athletes work two full-time jobs. Ask anybody who's ever worked two full-time jobs what it's like. Heck, ask someone who's worked two part-time jobs. It's totally exhausting, and you've got to be great at both of them all the time.

College will not be relaxing for you. It will be challenging, it will be rewarding, it will be unlike anything you'll ever experience…but it will not be relaxing.

Then there's the kicker: equestrian is not a solid career choice. There, we said it. It was painful, but we said it. Gosh, now we deserve a gold star.

Sadly, equestrian is just as unpopular after college as it is in college. Not a lot of people are crazy about horses once they pass the age of twelve, so their idea of a really good time isn't watching world-class equestrians strut their stuff.

The equipment is super expensive and you need lots of space. That knocks out, like, 99.9% of the population automatically. It's hard to drum up support for a sport that not a lot of people are interested in, can afford, or have space for.

We know, we know. It's not fair.

The silver lining to this massive dark cloud is that there are lots of careers involving horses. You can be a vet, a breeder, a trainer, or a stable owner—to name just a few (source). Horse riding won't be your job, but you'll get to keep horses in your life.

And you'll have that degree in veterinary medicine, animal training, or business to help you, right? Basically, if you get your degree in something other than horse riding, you'll be able to build a career around horses. Funny how life works, huh?