The Hart Equestrian Team
From left to right, sitting on horses are, Jeff Fuehring and Cimmy; Michelle Beckman and Rick; myself and Baby; Holly Kokx and Khemo; Samantha Boukamp and Candy; Wendie Simonson and Petly. Standing on horses in back are Amber Rasmussen and Sheva; Jill Hodges and Skip; and Sarah Guy and Willy.
We, The Hart Equestrian Team, compete against other teams in our district, and earn point instead of ribbons in the classes that you place in. The team in each class A, B and C with the most points at the end of three meets, goes down to Detroit to participate in the Michigan Interscholastic Horsemanship Association State Championship. Our team is Class A. So, we do good in our District meets, dominating the classes, but we get to State, and then they show us what Class A really means. That's when we get excited if we made a cut in one of the classes.We have fun regardless. We take our banner down, and show our pride, and we actually do place in some gymkhana classes. This year, our only freshman, only boy rider, also, somehow, miraculously took a first place in a Saddleseat Bareback class, on a western pleasure Arabian!! Go figure.
        My horse and I are gamers. We take first in just about all the gymkhana classes in the district, and we really get into it. At State, everybody paints their horses and writes on them and everything, and after seeing that our first year down there, we brought it back to the district with us for this year. The first time we painted up our horses, we really got some funny looks.. Especially me... Oh well, I had a blast. People can laugh at me all they want, but after I run my pattern, they tend to quit laughing, and realized that when I write "Rip It Up" and "Eat My Dust" on my horse's flanks, I mean it. When they can beat me, they can laugh. Fair? I got by far the most points for our team this year, and most of it was in games. That is what my horse and I like to do, and that is what we will continue to do.

This was our hallway at state. They call my horse the tourist. She just likes to see what is going on, so we left her gate open a little.


Baby didn't mind company, but more than one person found out that she doesn't mind sharing food with people. That's Holly in the chair. We ate mostly Sloppy Joes and stew down there because it was so cold.

After all that work all year, and after the state show, we have a banquet for the District where we get our trophies awarded to us. One of them is for winning in our district, and the other one is for our place at state. Michelle is one of our two seniors, and since the other senior (Amber) rode in the Opening Ceremony at the State show, Michelle got to keep the two trophies.