Auburn University's equestrian team has been successful for the better part of two decades, including winning three national championships. However they had never played under a covered arena before.
"The problem in the past was if you had bad weather like rain the team had to either reschedule for a later time or they had to ride in wet, muddy lots," said Tim Boosinger, Provost for Auburn University.
That's all changed this year, as the Equestrian team celebrated the official opening of a new covered facility this Friday with a ribbon cutting before their match against Texas A&M.
"We're making our mission to be the best athletic experience that a student athlete can have here at Auburn," equestrian head coach Gregg Williams said. "We want this to be the best equestrian experience that a horse and rider can ever have at any university."
Sponsored by the College of Agriculture, the covered arena had a budget of a million dollars and was the result of private gifts from donors in support of the equestrian team. The new facility had been worked on in phases since 2006.
Both Coach Williams and Boosinger believe that the new facility will help recruit more players to make the program even better than it is now.
Wayne Greene, the department head of animal sciences, also said that more changes would be in store for the equestrian program in the future.
"This arena will be what it is for now but we will add additional things out here as we go on," Greene said. "We've covered the roof, put in fencing and added new soil for the horses to ride on. It's a big step forward for our horse program here at Auburn University but it won't be the end of our dream."
Greene said the dream he was talking about included new locker and dressing rooms, and eventually an indoor facility.
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