Probably the most annoying thing someone can say to me is “horse-back riding is not a sport.” People have some nerve to say something like that to a horse person. Saying that “horse-back riding isn’t a sport” is so incredibly rude. In our sport, we ride on top of a 1200 pound animal that can not speak any language. They could crush us if they wanted to. We spend at least three hours a day not just riding, but mucking stalls, lifting hay bales and water buckets and cleaning the tack. We have to make sure we’re in decent physical condition so we are not holding down the horse running barrels, jumping over jumps or even catching a calf. When riding a horse we do not “just sit there,” we have to teach our horses how to turn on a dime, tuck their knees, and stop when the rope is on the calf. According to Gloria Beim, statistics show that about 78,249 people have been in the emergency room due to a horse related injury. If the dirt is not good for barrel racing and the horse falls, the rider is getting their leg crushed by a 1200 pound horse who lost their balance. We have learned to work and get in sync with an animal that can’t speak, hours after hours, days after days we can’t just “take a break.” Horse-back riding is a sport because we work as hard as we possibly can, rain or shine.