Junior Sarah Morris trots her way to first place in a fall 2025 competition
Courtesy | Sarah Morris
Students in the Hillsdale College Equestrian Club dedicate themselves to taking weekly lessons and competing in horse shows several times a semester, according to junior Sarah Morris, president of the club.
Students usually participate in the club while taking “English Riding,” a one-credit class offered by the college, Morris said. The class provides eight riding lessons at the stable Teetor Equestrian under instructor Betsy Teetor ’05. Students are assigned a different horse to ride at each lesson, providing unique challenges based on the horses’ varying personalities.
“I like the community when you start riding, because you ride with the same group every time,” freshman Ava Fosdick said. “I started riding with two girls last semester, and we got really close by the end of it. It was fun seeing all of us improve.”
According to Morris, students take lessons in the hunter-jumper style.
“I like to think about hunter-jumper as the opposite of a cowboy,” Morris said. “It’s more based on your decorum and your attitude and kind of the whole look. You have a certain uniform that you have to wear, and you are judged based on how you ride the horse and how you look and things like that.”
According to Morris, the club will be at the Source fall 2026, offering an opportunity to anyone interested in horses, regardless of past experience.
“If they want to ride and show horses, then we start the process of getting them registered in our show circuit,” Morris said.
The club had its start when Teetor was a student at Hillsdale, according to Morris.
“When she went to Hillsdale, she and one other girl didn’t have a place to ride, so she would go down to the fairgrounds and ask random people or get to know people in town and ask them to ride their horses, and that’s how they would practice,” Morris said.
After Teetor graduated, the club died out, but Morris said Bri Bertsch ’24 revived it in her sophomore year. Around the same time, Teetor became the club’s coach.
“When I moved back to Michigan after several years of working in Indiana, I was put in touch with the Hillsdale coach through one of my previous college contacts, Kathy Connor, ” Teetor said. “The previous coach has since moved on, and I was able to assume the coaching position in 2020.”
At shows, students can compete in flat classes, consisting of walk-trot-canter, or over fences, according to Morris.
“Typically, the commute to a horse show is about an hour to an hour and a half from campus,” Morris said. “The furthest one is about two and a half hours away.”
Since paying for a hotel room isn’t feasible for the level the club currently competes at, Morris said Hillsdale students usually pick one of the two days the show will take place to attend. They’ll leave around 5:45 a.m. and will often be at the show until the mid- to late afternoon.
This spring, Morris will compete at regionals at the end of February. If she places in the top two in her class, she’ll advance to zones.
“I don’t know if that’s going to happen, so hypothetically, February is the end of our season,” Morris said.
Although the club is mostly for people who want to show, Morris said anyone can take the English Riding class.
“If you love horses, then it’s a lot of fun,” Fosdick said. “It doesn’t matter how much riding experience you really have.”
