Nassau County 4-H Hoofbeats Hippology does it again! Our members competed at the State Hippology contest again last weekend and we’re bringing home 2nd place overall intermediate team as well as several individual honors! Individual honors included:
- Julia G winning 3rd place overall individual
- Lainey Walters winning 5th place overall individual
- Paisely Broussard winning 6th place overall individual
- Amelia Hawkes winning 7th place overall individual
- Eden Hawkes winning 10th place overall individual
- Eva Hawkes winning 7th place overall for her written test scores in the Senior category
For those reading with little context, this annual contest is a two-day rigorous program that tests youth on their industry subject mastery through written tests, item identification, team problems, and live horse judging. Everything from nutrition, anatomy, training, welfare, industry regulations, genetics, and more are all testable. Needless to say this is NOT a contest you can cram for in a weekend. This highly competitive event brings youth from across the state once a year to determine who will move forward to Regionals and Nationals.
What we’re most proud of is how even though they considered this their “practice year”, they all worked tremendously hard to study the vast amount of material required for this contest. We even saw moments where our youth were peer-teaching other counties and allowing themselves to be mentored by peers. Even now they are continuing their studies! For some people, this may just seem like a nerdy contest about horses, but for those who have a closer connection we see the growth that this opportunity gives to raise a youth’s self-confidence and passion for learning science. Please congratulate these youth and share their accomplishments with all your friends! We have a suspicion we’ll be headed back to Nationals with this team soon.
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