Tri-State Neighbor: South Dakota Farm Newspaper

The 3-year-old equestrian program at South Dakota State University increased its potential late this spring.

The SDSU Equestrian Center, built on the north end of the campus in Brookings, S.D., completed phase one of construction this spring. Construction began on the facility in 2006.

SDSU equestrian head coach Megan McGee says phase one includes an indoor arena, hay barn and outdoor arena.

“They will continue on with construction for stables for the horses, barns that will attach to this building and an addition to the south side of the main arena building will have offices and a meeting room, trophy room,” McGee said. “That's going to continue, it's going to be ongoing.”

The indoor riding arena is 108-feet-by-218-feet, with the total size of the building at 48,000 square feet. In addition to the indoor arena, the facility includes 40 stalls, wash racks, grooming areas and tack rooms.

The total grounds for the SDSU Equestrian Center is 150 acres. Part of the ground for the next few seasons will continue to be farmed. Eventually that land will be developed for use by the equestrian team.

“We'll have about 25 or 30 acres of pastures and small paddocks here that will have fence by the end of summer or the dry season this year,” McGee said. “But there's quite a bit of land that the university has designated for the Equestrian Center that they're still going to continue to farm the north half of it for the next few years.”

The SDSU equestrian team consists of 50 women from all over the United States, with the majority coming from the Upper Midwest.

For the past three years, the team has practiced at the Pegasus Equine Center or the Swiftel Center, where all of their home contests are held. The team began practice at the SDSU Equestrian Center April 30.

McGee says the new facility will help the women get in more quality practices.

“It was a very nice barn that we were at, but with a small arena. We practiced with small groups, two or three riders,” she said. “We'll be able to practice safely and (have) productive practice with a larger group of riders.”

Practices generally run for 45 minutes to an hour per rider per horse. In an intercollegiate competition, each rider draws for the horse she will compete on. With the new facility, more riders can switch horses more often.

“If we have six horses in the ring practicing at a time and being able to switch, they have the opportunity to switch to more horses in the same time at practice,” McGee said.

The facility uses radiant heat to maintain the interior temperature. The building also has a ridge vent at the top, with vents on the east and west ends.

McGee says it is not important to keep the same temperature year-round, but more important that it is not too hot in the wintertime.

“We keep the temperature somewhere between 45 and 48 degrees, any hotter than that and the horses start to sweat a lot. You're just going to have more potential problems as far as the health of the horses to keep the temperature higher than that,” she said.

Looking to the future of the facility, plans include housing for 80 horses. Currently, the horses housed at the facility are leased horses, student-owned horses and university-owned horses. The expansion to accommodate 80 horses will come when additional stables are built on to the main facility.

“Actually these stalls come out of the building and go into the barns. This area that has stalls in it right now, this would become an additional riding arena,” she said.

Eventually having two practice areas would accommodate the increased number of riders McGee hopes to have on her team. The NCAA does not have an upper limit on the number of athletes allowed on a team, but the goal of the SDSU equestrian program is to have 60 student athletes.

With the hopes to expand the program to include more horses, SDSU will be able to host more schools for competition.

“The limitations are usually set by the school that's hosting, and it can be based on how many horses that they have available,” McGee said.