L to R: Kendra Cleghorn, Riley Widman, Haylee Widman. Photo Submitted

By Robin Barnes

JAMESTOWN, N.D. (Stutsman County 4-H) – The ND Winter Show Hippology Contest was held on March 6th in Valley City.

Thanks to the Valley City State University for opening up their student union building to allow 17 teams from over 5 counties to compete in this contest of horse knowledge. There are three age groups and four different sections to this event that tests their knowledge of feed, equipment, breeds, confirmation, health and using teamwork to solve a problem and present it to a judge. The youth participating in this event need to practice and study very hard to become competent.

This is one practice step towards the state contest that will be held on June 4th at Minot in conjunction with the ND Horse Expo. There, the 1st place senior Hippology team will earn a trip to the national event that is held at the Denver Stock Show in January.

Awards were presented on the stage at the Winter Show south building and sponsored by the Winter Show.

First place teams received free rodeo tickets for the evening rodeo.

Our Stutsman County team was short one person as teams are normally 4 members, so was not able to compete equally as a team for overall high point and placed 4th out of the 4 senior teams there, but did very well in the team problem by placing 2nd.

Seniors are awarded individual awards in each of the three sections. Kendra Cleghorn was 4th overall and placed 4th in stations, 6th in judging and 8th in the exam. Haylee Widman placed 4th in judging.

If you have any questions about Hippology or 4-H, please contact Robin at the NDSU Extension Stutsman County office at 252-9030.