UGA equestrian team set to defend national title
Meghan Boenig, head coach of Georgia’s remarkably successful equestrian program, made an innocent fashion faux pas when she interviewed for the job nine years ago.
She wore a coral-colored shirt.
“It was much more pink than having any orange in it, but I was corrected very quickly of the fact that it had some tendency toward orange,” Boenig joked, winking at the notion that orange, while a popular color with Georgia rivals Florida, Tennessee and Auburn, doesn’t go over so well in Athens. “When they called me back [for a second interview], I had red on that day. I was all red and black.”
The colors have suited Boenig and her often overlooked sport ever since. Few start-up programs can match the successes her team has reached, including four national championships in seven seasons.
As Georgia opens the postseason this weekend with the Southern EQ Championships at Auburn, the program stands as a national power in varsity equestrian, termed an “emerging” sport by the NCAA.
Perhaps to the surprise of those who might not consider Georgia horse country, the Bulldogs are two-time defending national champs and have won the Southern EQ, the equivalent of the SEC championship, five straight years and six of the seven years of the event's existence.
Georgia (12-2) is ranked No. 1 in the National Equestrian Coaches Poll, despite a March 6 loss at No. 2 Auburn. Following the Southern EQ, Georgia will defend its national title April 15-17 in Waco, Texas.
“Georgia may not be the first state that comes to mind, but there’s a lot of horse people here,” said assistant coach Logan Fiorentino, a former Bulldog rider who coaches the team’s jumpers. “We’ve built a reputation here with our program where we attract riders from all over the country.”
“I didn’t look at any other school to ride at when I was recruited,” said sophomore Emma Lipman from Bedford, N.Y., who competes in jumping. “This is a program that everyone wants to be part of.”
Then-athletics director Vince Dooley noticed something else that day when Boenig, then just 24, interviewed in 2001. She would become the university’s youngest sports coach.
“You’re awfully young to be taking all of this on, aren’t you?” Boenig recalls being asked by the UGA coaching legend. “I said, ‘Coach, if this program is successful, then I’m always going to be successful.’ ”
Good answer.
Not only did Georgia win the Varsity Equestrian National title in its first year (2002-03), it repeated the next season and has finished no worse than fourth since. The program has grown from 24 riders and 14 horses to 60 riders and 55 horses.
“It wasn’t a surprise to me,” Boenig said of the fast rise of the program, which was established to comply with Title IX. “When we came in that first year and we worked hard and we were able to have that victory, that’s the taste we’ve wanted in our mouths from then on. ...
“I push hard. I push my assistant coaches hard and the Athletic Association. And I think those pushes result in success.”
Georgia claims 37 national team titles and only gymnastics (10) and men’s (eight) and women’s tennis (five) have more national crowns.
“Anytime you’re talking about a sport in the SEC, you’re talking tops in the country,” said Fiorentino, adding that SEC schools have won the past eight national championships. “So you’re talking about strength and depth [in equestrian] and it’s no different than any other sport at Georgia. We take our sports pretty serious around here.”
Serious enough that the Athletic Association spent $2.75 million to purchase a 109-acre farm in Bishop, Ga., about 12 miles south of Athens, for the Georgia Equestrian Center, where competitions and practices are held and the horses are stabled.
Before then, the program shared facilities with the university’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Department of Animal and Dairy Science.
“It’s a very big and real commitment toward equestrian,” Boenig said. “[The Athletic Association] believes it’s a sport that will thrive.”
Boenig, who may be driving a tractor one day and attending a budget meeting the next, carries many duties. But none may be as important for her and her riders than promoting the sport to the Bulldog Nation and others.
That includes answering questions on what the sport is all about. College equestrian includes competition in the English (such as show jumping) and Western (think cowboys) disciplines.
“I try to let everyone know how it works. I know it’s not a very well-known sport, especially in the college world,” said Alicia Shrum of Alpharetta, a Western rider. “The most common question is, ‘Do you jump?’ I have to explain to them, no, it’s the thing with the cowboy hat and the chaps that they see in movies. It’s an easy way for them to see it.”
Reaching out has been important to the bottom line, too. Most of the horses, appraised at $1 million, according to Boenig, have been donated by boosters, including two by Polly and Peter Hemingway of Alpharetta, who believed it was easier to make a donation than to try to sell the horses in a down economy.
Four Hemingway daughters are riders. Lauren and Sara are former letterwinners, Julia has been recruited to join, and Mary, still at Milton High School, has a promising riding future.
“Sara has two national championship rings, just like the football team,” Polly Hemingway said. “It’s really a neat thing. They’re part of the university as athletes, just like other sports.”
The next step for equestrian is attaining full championship status from the NCAA, which would require 40 schools to offer the sport. Right now, 23 Division I and II schools have varsity equestrian, according to www.varsityequestrian.com. Around 15 Division III schools compete and if they declare equestrian an “emerging” sport, “We’d be very, very close to that magic number,” Boenig said.
