The FFA Horse Judging team placed first 1st in their area and 10th overall this Monday. The team competed at the SFA Invitational CDE’s and sophomore’s Dee Hill, Laura Whatley, Isabelle Stanford, and junior Natalie Gordon will advance to area.
“I’m really proud of our team for making it this far,” Hill said. “ I’m looking forward to traveling to area with the team and seeing what quality of horses we’ll be judging.”
Students place a class of four horses in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th depending on what they think makes them or doesn’t make them a good horse. There are eight total classes in a competition.
“I’m a little nervous, but mostly I’m excited for the area competition,” Whatley said. “I’m excited to compete and really excited about the opportunity to go to state.”
There are three to four performance classes, or movement classes where they judge how the horse moves, and the rest are halter classes, where they judge how the horse looks. Students want a horse with straight legs, even feet, straight walk, and good muscle definition.
Making area is keeping me very driven and excited as this is my first area competition. I like horse judging because not only do I love looking at horses, but I love being with them and knowing all about them.
— Natalie Gordon
There are multiple judges who rank the class that students judge at the same time. The judge’s rankings are the officials and the closer the student’s scores are to the judges, the better.
“My favorite part of horse judging is the way you get to travel and hang out with everyone on the team,” Stanford said. “It’s definitely an added bonus to the fun of the competitions in general.”
The students practice for competitions by watching videos of horses in class. They practice ranking the horses as if they were in competition.
“I hope for good horses and good scores at the area competition,” Whatley said. “I like my horse judging team because we all get along really well and are always building each other up and helping each other.”
