When Jennifer Hoggle first came to visit Judson College, she didn’t care much about touring the campus. She didn’t even really care about seeing the dorms.
“I just wanted to see the barn. The barn looked fine to me, so that was all I needed,” Hoggle said with a laugh. “Just give me a room facing the barn.”
It’s not a foreign thought in Marion.
Since Hoggle graduated from Judson in 1994 and came back two years later to head up its equestrian program, there’s been a run on the school’s barnside dorm rooms.
In the last decade, many students have followed in Hoggle’s footsteps, drawn to the school by what’s proving to be a strong student recruiter — a dark, lanky thoroughbred named Hunt, along with 15 of his friends.
“I passed up free college to go here,” Maggie Audley of Bell, Fla., said.
“I could have had school paid for, too — by the military — if I had picked a public school but I chose Judson,” said Christy Spearman of Semmes.
Why? Both will tell you quickly it’s the horses.
“We’re beginning to see more women choose Judson for the horses,” said President David Potts. “The equestrian program is a wonderful presence on our campus.”
The program has been around since the turn of the last century, surviving through a few fits and starts and becoming a more consistent and vital part of the college in the 1970s, Potts said.
Now it’s as much of a fixture at the small college steeped in tradition as the senior girls’ rose arbor and the school’s china used for special occasions. On any given day on the way to science class or lunch, 385 girls might walk right past a walk-trot class or a jumping lesson taking place on the quad-like area right in the center of campus.
“It never really seems to be old hat to them, though,” Hoggle said of the students who pass on their way to class. “They’ll stop and watch for a while a lot of times, especially when we’re playing broomstick polo.”
“And especially when Susan’s on Java,” Audley said, the rest of the equestrian team stifling laughter. It’s an inside joke and Susan Guider of Utica, Miss., rolled her eyes. The last time Guider rode Java — a horse they all seem to know by experience is more challenging than the other 15 dependable steeds at the school — he didn’t take too well to the broom and, in turn, didn’t take too well to Guider.
But she didn’t seem to mind too much. In fact, the broom joke — at her own instigating — came up several more times as she and the others headed out for their afternoon riding class April 10.
“As you can see, these girls don’t get along at all,” Hoggle teased. “You should see them on a long van ride. It’s a lot of fun.”
She speaks from recent personal experience — some members of the team had just gotten back early that morning from a trip to Georgia, where they competed in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) Zone 5 Region 2 Championship Show.
Spearman came away with a fifth-place ribbon in the individual walk-trot-canter equitation class — Judson’s first rider ever to compete in the show in a hunt seat division. And teammate Lauren Stephens of Mountain Brook won second place in individual intermediate western horsemanship, qualifying her for the national championship show May 5 in Harrisburg, Pa.
She’ll make this the second year in the history of Judson’s IHSA team that the school is represented at the national show. Last year was the first. And Hoggle will serve as a steward at the national show, an unusual honor for Judson having only been there once.
“Jennifer deserves a lot of praise. She’s done a wonderful job, and the program just gets better and better,” said Janice Palmer Williams, an adjunct riding instructor and 1983 Judson grad. “We never traveled as a team when I was here, but the program is much different now, and the horses are much higher quality. We didn’t have the team experience they have now.”
In the decade since Hoggle came on staff, Judson joined IHSA and started going to shows, something Potts said added “serious momentum” to the program.
“The intercollegiate show team got our name on the map in the horse world,” Hoggle said.
The school also added to its academic repertoire several interdisciplinary majors that combine an equine science minor with biology, business or journalism — a stepping-stone into veterinary medicine, equine business management or horse-related publicity.
“The program offers a lot of opportunities for young women, and it builds confidence and ability,” Potts said. “It also is an enormous benefit to those going into veterinary medicine, giving them large animal experience that is very valuable. That’s one reason Judson has a high acceptance rate into vet schools.”
Though not the only college in the state to offer equestrian classes — Auburn boasts a long-standing program — Judson is the only one that offers interdisciplinary majors with equine concentrations, Hoggle said.
Judson grads have received job offers such as stable manager for Biltmore Estate, and Judson students have been raved about in prestigious internships such as those with the Kentucky Equine Management Internship program, a six-month paid internship during which students focus on specific tracks such as working with broodmares or foaling.
“They have been fascinated with all the people they have had come from Judson to the program,” Hoggle said. “They had no idea we were a small school judging from the caliber students they have gotten from us.”
Guider is one student who will be going to another internship this summer — working with a well-known trainer in her home state of Mississippi.
Guider’s mother said Judson “must be the best kept secret in equine schools of the Southeast.” And she voiced concern that because of that, once the school builds its new regulation-size arena — the old one was taken down to build the new Charles F. Dunkin Athletic Park — Judson will grow bigger than the one-on-one arrangement it has now.
“We don’t plan to change (the one-on-one atmosphere). There are two students who aren’t here today, and I know exactly where each of them is,” Hoggle said, gesturing to the class warming up their horses around the field. “A smaller group gives us more opportunity for helping each other, team-building and togetherness.”
And that’s not just among the eight members of the equestrian team — the equine spirit bleeds over into other areas of Judson’s academia as well.
Equestrian students get to use the horses to better the rest of the Marion community, riding them as part of their service learning to nearby nursing homes to talk with residents there.
Students of any discipline can sign up for Beginning Riding 109 just like they might for Elementary French 101, and many of them say they chose Judson for the horses, too.
Some 25 to 30 students take riding classes each semester, and probably 25 percent of those are new each time, Hoggle said.
“And working in the barn is the most popular work-study job on campus,” Potts said. “The young women line up to clean out stalls. They just love being around the horses.”
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