One Big Thing: UC Davis NCAA Equestrian Team faces demotion to Club Sport
In a press release that posted January 9, 2026, UC Davis announced that their Division I NCAA Equestrian Team would be transitioning from varsity status to club sport status, stating that this change would “allow interested students to continue competing while aligning institutional investment with competitive realities. UC Davis will sponsor Equestrian as a varsity program through the 2025–26 academic year, and the department will coordinate with affected student-athletes to provide guidance and support during the transition.” This announcement was published less than an hour after the student-athletes were notified of the discontinuation, mere weeks after a large fundraising event promoted by UC Davis Athletics, and a few months following active Team recruitment for the 2026-2027 season by University faculty.
This announcement promptly led to an industry-wide outrage, with letters penned in strong opposition to the University of California Board of Regents by several prominent organizations including the American Horse Council, Desert International Horse Park, and Center for Equine Health, just to name a few. News coverage has since spread across the country as well, with platforms from ABC News to The Plaid Horse to a recent Op Ed on the Horse Network all penning their support for the team — some even announcing that four current and prospective UC Davis equestrian student athletes have moved to file a lawsuit against the school due to this discontinuation.
One might think this demotion had been consequence of poor performance on the team’s part — but the facts show otherwise. In fact, the D1 NCAA team has been one of the most successful women’s teams at UC Davis, with achievements including back-to-back ECAC Conference Championships in 2023 and 2024, a national ranking of #7, a Team GPA of approximately 3.5 (among the highest in UC Davis Athletics), and being named UC Davis Women’s Team of the Year in 2024.
A follow-up statement was released by UC Davis a month later, citing “detailed financial analysis and an independent assessment of the national competitive landscape conducted by an external firm with experience in intercollegiate athletics” as their primary deciding factor in enacting this discontinuation. They also highlighted that “an important consideration in making this decision is that Varsity Equestrian is among the most resource-intensive sports to sponsor, due to the specialized care, housing, veterinary services, and training required for horses.” However, the UC Davis Equestrian Team’s movement “Keep Davis Riding” published their own response the following day stating that UC Davis used flawed data to justify the elimination of the D1 Women’s Equestrian Team in their statement, with a detailed accounting of “conflicting data, faulty reasoning, and — in what appears to be a common pattern — inconsistent and inflated budget numbers.”
What is the team asking for?
Per the UC Davis Equestrian Team’s site, supporters are asking the university to:
- Pause implementation of the decision
- Release the financial analysis and consultant report
- Meet with student-athletes, parents, and donors
- Explore sustainable alternatives to discontinuing the program
The goal is to ensure decisions affecting student-athletes and women’s athletics are made transparently and collaboratively.
“This program matters,” states the Keep Davis Riding team’s mission statement. “It matters to every girl who woke up at 4 am for meet days. To every rider who balanced school and the team, to every young athlete who has spent years dreaming to ride for this team, and to every horse cared for and loved on by these girls. To every alum who helped build something bigger than themselves.
“Moreover, reinstating the equestrian team aligns with UC Davis’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, offering scholarships and opportunities to student-athletes from various backgrounds. The team not only promotes gender equality in sports but also encourages a connection with nature and animal welfare, echoing the university’s environmental ethics and leadership in veterinary sciences.
“We urge the UC Davis administration to reconsider their decision and reinstate the D1 NCEA Equestrian Team. Doing so will not only restore opportunities for current and future student-athletes but also reaffirm UC Davis’s dedication to comprehensive excellence and innovative education. Let us uphold UC Davis’s proud equestrian legacy and ensure that future generations have the same opportunities to thrive.”
[You can find the UC Davis Equestrian Team’s Summary of Concerns here]
What can you do to help?
The Keep Davis Riding committee has requested community assistance through calling and emailing political and UC Davis leadership opposing this decision — contact information can be found here.
Additionally, the committee has created a public petition (currently with over 40,000 verified signatures) urging the university’s administration to reconsider their decision and reinstate the Equestrian Team.
A fundraiser has also been started online by one of many “proud and heartbroken parent[s] of a UC Davis Equestrian Team member”, with all donated funds to be directed to covering the costs associated with the efforts to reinstate UC Davis Equestrian as a Division I program, including “outreach and communication efforts, and awareness campaigns through keepdavisriding.com. Any remaining funds will be used to support the athletes and team logistics during the transition period.”
[Learn more about the “Keep Davis Riding” committee’s movement to #ReinstateUCDEquestrian]
[Follow the Keep Davis Riding movement on Instagram]
US Events Opening Entries Today
The Event at TerraNova (FL); Galway Downs International HT (CA); Morven Park Spring HT (VA); Jumping Branch Farm Spring HT (SC); Bouckaert Equestrian HT (GA)
US Events Closing Entries Today
Loudoun Hunt Pony Club Spring HT (VA); Horse Park of New Jersey Spring HT (NJ)
Other Links and Reading
Sponsor Corner: Kentucky Performance Products
Last month, we touched on the importance of maintaining healthy levels of Vitamin E in your horse’s diet — but what difference does the addition of Selenium make to your Vitamin E supplement? KPP has the answer — and it’s an important one you might not have known.
While Vitamin E supplements like Elevate® provide a highly bioavailable source of natural vitamin E to horses, Elevate® Se also delivers natural vitamin E and organic selenium in a form your horse’s body actually recognizes and absorbs well, similar to what it would get from grazing on healthy pasture. That means more of it actually gets stored in the tissues and is ready to go when your horse needs it most.
What’s happening in your horse’s body, and where does Selenium (and vitamin E) come in?
When your horse uses energy in any way — whether simply breathing or undergoing hard exercise — it produces waste byproducts called free radicals. These free radical act like exhaust fumes from a car engine: a natural result of the engine running, but harmful if they build up. Your horse’s body can handle a small amount of these on its own, but the harder your horse works, the more free radicals are produced, and the more help it needs to clean them up.
Selenium and vitamin E work as a team to neutralize free radicals before they can damage your horse’s cells, especially helpful in neurological conditions like equine neuroaxonal dystrophy (eNAD) and equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy (EDM) that are linked to inadequate vitamin E intake during critical growth periods. Selenium specifically activates an enzyme that acts like a cleanup crew, stopping free radicals from forming in the first place and breaking down others that can destroy cell membranes. Healthy cells = healthy horse! Damaged cells leave the door open for all kinds of health problems.
Why is it important to be precise with Selenium supplementation?
The FDA recommends 3 mg of selenium per day as a safe baseline for the average horse, but every horse is different, and yours may need more or less depending on where you live and what their current diet is. Since many horses are on multiple supplements at once, selenium can add up quickly across products, making it easy to either fall short or accidentally overshoot — and going over the maximum tolerable dose can cause potential poisonous reactions in your horse. That’s why it’s so important to work with a veterinarian or equine nutritionist: they can evaluate your horse’s individual needs, review everything in the diet together, and make sure your horse is getting exactly the right amount.
Training Tip of the Day
Hop over to EquiRating’s Eventing Podcast to listen in on Gemma Steven’s three simple tips for starting the season right:
Go Eventing
When the arena sprinklers become their own “B” element of a combination:
