Unlike other club teams that must practice on fields confined by concrete and steel, Penn's equestrian team regularly piles into a rented car and heads to New Jersey to practice.
Their system of self-organized transportation limits the members who can practice at any one time to four or five, which helps to foster closer friendships, but forces the other 20 or so members to bear city life until their next lesson.
"Any student organization -- especially with a place like Penn that has [20,000] people -- is going to give people who may feel overwhelmed by the size a place to make friends," says club Treasurer and College senior Pam Stewart.
The equestrian team is a coed, student-run club sport open to all undergraduate and graduate students at Penn, regardless of previous riding experience.
The team organizes its riding schedules to accommodate each member and provides transportation throughout the week to its riding space in Mount Laurel, N.J.
Membership dues are $65 and each hourlong lesson is an additional $35.
The equestrian team is part of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association, which organizes each team geographically by zone and region. Penn's team is in Zone III Region II and competes against other colleges and universities, including the University of Delaware, Temple University, Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College.
There are generally 10 competitions in the semester: six in the fall and four in the spring.
Participating in the competitions, however, is optional.
"One great thing about it is that we are in a city and this is a great opportunity to ride and not everyone has to compete," says College senior and club captain Dina Gordon.
Above anything else, the club is an extracurricular activity, and the club's leaders hope to make it as relaxed as possible.
"The point of the club is that it is a place where we can all get together and ride and not be too competitive," Gordon says. She adds that when the team does attend a competition, they go as a whole group.
Although members compete individually in competitions, the team's final rank is the sum of its members' personal scores.
"Everyone matters to the whole team; you compete as an individual and as a team," Gordon says.
On top of providing a fun atmosphere for people interested in riding, the team must enter into business contracts with the various companies who host the riding locations for competitions and who rent out the horses.
"It's a great opportunity for leadership," Stewart says about the responsibility of planning competitions.
The team is currently ranked fifth out of the 12 teams in their region.
"Five team members have already qualified for the regionals in April, and if you win the regionals, you go on to the nationals," Gordon adds.
This year, Penn's equestrian team is co-hosting the All-Ivy Invitational competition with Princeton and Columbia in northern Pennsylvania in the spring.
