Fielding Your Own Team

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220 – November/December, 2025

By Megan Arszman

In a world where parents are looking for sports to enroll their children in so they can keep them busy every weekend, thousands of dollars can be invested in uniforms, equipment, lessons, and tournament fees. When most internet posts compare the annual cost of travel or recreational teams against each other, the one sport that’s often missing is equestrian.

Encouraging new participants to try riding or showing horses has been a constant struggle for equine breed and equestrian discipline organizations. The main concerns include overall cost and availability of training along with the most important teammate–the horse. But there’s a better way to introduce horses to youth without the big investment of purchasing one and finding a place to keep it.

Enter the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA).

It follows in the footsteps of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA), a group that has been around since 1967 with the intent of providing “equestrian competition for all college and university students regardless of riding level, gender, race, sexual orientation, or financial status.” The IHSA offers classes for beginners through advanced riders in both Hunter and Western disciplines (now including ranch classes), while eliminating the expenses of horse ownership. The IEA was founded in 2002 with just 200 participants, pushing the mission of promoting lifelong involvement in equestrian athletics. The most recent membership numbers for the 2024-2025 season topped 14,940 participants.

The IEA has two different age groups for teams:

Click here to read the complete article
220 – November/December, 2025