At UMass Amherst's Equine Farm and Livestock Center, students take courses on horses.
What do Macaroni and Snickers have in common? They’re both equine residents of the UMass Amherst Hadley Farm Equine and Livestock Center. It’s home to 65 horses, weanlings on up to twenty-somethings, many of them Bay State Morgans, progeny of the university’s own horse-breeding program. (The four-legged members of the university’s mounted police are also stabled there.) The teaching and research facility has a nucleus of three large barns as well as other outbuildings, a 100-foot by 200-foot indoor riding arena, a full-size dressage arena, a training track, a cross-country course, outdoor exercise and riding rings, and with a total area of 131 acres, plenty of space for turnout. In spring and fall it hosts horse shows. Located on North Maple Street in Hadley, a short drive from the main campus, the farm is set among fields and woods, with a view of hills to the northwest. On a warm spring day, you might spot a kestrel circling overhead or a flock of bluebirds skimming its pastures. The farm has been in Hadley since 1990. Before that it was just down the hill from the center of campus; mares and their foals used to graze where the Mullins Center stands now.
Veterinary and Animal Sciences students convene at the farm to learn about equine care, handling, breeding, and management. As well, the farm offers riding lessons, from beginners to advanced levels. Offered first to animal science majors, then open to any student wants to try riding – no experience required, no need to bring your own horse - the one-credit courses attract many students who have no horsey career aspirations.
Assistant Director of Riding Suzanne Mente ’99 understands sociology majors who want to ride horses: she was one herself. Growing up in Concord, Mass., she took riding lessons, belonged to a pony club, even had her own horse, then put it all aside when she graduated from high school and moved to Boston. After working at the Boston Museum of Science for several years, she came to UMass Amherst with the goal of becoming a social worker. “It was never on my mind,” she says, to try to make a living working with horses. Her sociology classes proved less engaging than her riding lessons at the farm, however, and so, she says, “I decided to study what I love.”
Graduating first from the campus’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture with a degree in equine science, then earning a B.S. in animal science, she now teaches classes she once took as a student. “It’s fantastic,” she says. “I have a very rare horse job.” Among the special benefits which distinguish it from many jobs in the equine industry: “You know your classes will always fill, you get to work with good riders—and great horses.” In addition to being an Equine Studies lecturer and assistant director of riding, she is also the Stockbridge Program Coordinator and the coach of the intercollegiate dressage team, which has a terrific track record. Senior Michelle Lacasse was reserve champion in her division at the Intercollegiate Dressage Association National Championship in 2004. Jerry G. Schurink coaches the Hunt Seat Equitation Team, also based at the farm. It has an equally impressive record: former team member Amy Lowery ’04 placed third in the IHSA Nationals’ Cacchione Cup competition last year. You don’t have to be born in the saddle to qualify for the teams as riders compete according to their levels of experience. You do have to be taking a riding class (two sessions a week) and be available for practices, as well as the shows themselves.
For those who just want “a chance to have a relationship with a big animal,” as Mente puts it, riding lessons are an option; the 84 slots are usually enough to accommodate all the students who sign up. Another option is working on the farm, caring for the horses, mucking out the stables. The students who go this route, demanding though it is, do an excellent job. Even now, in mud season—which is also shedding season for the horses—the floors are well-swept, the stalls are tidy, the tack room, with its saddles, bridles, and assorted gear, as organized as a ship’s quarters. And the horses? Fawned over and doted upon.
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Department of Veterinary and Animal Science
Hadley Farm Equine and Livestock Center