Burbank student trotting into a college education

When people first hear about one Columbia High School senior’s recent athletic scholarship offer, they almost always first guess it’s for volleyball.

“They look at my height,” said Ashley Davidson, 17.

And when she tells them, no, it’s to ride horses, they venture barrel racing or a similar event. Nope, not racing, she tells them. Equestrian.

“I never really liked racing,” Ashley adds. “I’ve always liked the performance end. The pretty stuff.”

She’ll have plenty of opportunities beginning next fall. Ashley signed her letter of intent Friday to attend Texas A&M University, where she may compete in as many as 20 events per year — or more than double the number she currently participates in as a member of the equestrian team.

She’ll receive in-state tuition with 20 percent of her costs covered as part of her scholarship.

Athletic scholarships are a rare enough occurrence at the Burbank high school, school officials said, where only a handful of students have received offers to play sports such volleyball or football.

While equestrian is not a commonly talked-about sport, Ashley and her family are happy the years of training, show competitions and caring for several horses have paid off.

“From the time she started showing we had a dream, she had a dream,” said her mother, Sheila Davidson.

Ashley was always enamored with horses, family members said, noting that she didn’t play with Barbies, but with stick horses or stuffed animal horses or anything else that resembled a horse.

She began riding at the age of 5 but the first experience didn’t go so well.

“She got a free pony named Trouble,” said Alice Versteeg, her grandmother. “He was a pain. The first time she rode him she broke her arm.”

Sheila Davidson said no one in the family really came from a background involving horses and so there were some hard lessons that had to be learned in riding and training with the animals.

Eventually, Ashley began working exclusively with quarter horses and competing on the show circuit. She’s been ranked first in the Pacific Northwest for the youth category the past four years.

While she’s competed in several different styles, Ashley will work primarily in western horsemanship at Texas A&M. The events are focused on how well the rider and horse maintain posture and form while working in a specific pattern or routine in a variety of paces. Everything from the horse’s gait to the angle of the rider’s ankles are evaluated by judges.

Ashley currently has the benefit of being able to work with any of her three horses. In college competition, she will have to use a horse provided by a rival program that she’ll only get to warm up with for a couple of minutes before performing.

College will be an adjustment, Ashley said. It will be hard enough being away from family and friends, but training will take up a lot of her time outside of her planned studies in animal science. She’ll also have to compete for a slot in competitions, as only the top members of an equestrian team participate in events.

But the senior is already used to being busy. She’s in the Running Start program at Columbia Basin College, dances and works part-time for a retailer in Kennewick, all while regularly commuting to Arlington, Ore., to work with one of her horses. She also used to play volleyball and basketball until it began conflicting with her riding.

And while she won’t get to take any of her horses with her, she’s pretty excited about what awaits her when she arrives at Texas A&M.

“They have 65 horses on the team. I’ll have plenty to play with,” she said.

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 10:32 PM with the headline "Burbank student trotting into a college education."