Considering that some of the official reference materials for the 4-H Horse Bowl program are on the level of college pre-veterinary books, it's pretty impressive that young people are willing to buckle down and study with such dedication and devotion. Making it all the more impressive is that some of our junior team members are only 10- or 11-years-old and none of our senior team members is more than 19. The books they are required to study include the Certified Horsemanship Association's Composite Horsemanship Manual Levels 1-4; the second edition of The Horse by Evans, Borton, Hintz, and Van Vleck; the American Youth Horse Council's Horse Industry Handbook; Ensminger's Horses and Horsemanship; and the 4-H horse project manuals.

Before I started helping coach our county teams, the kids were told nothing about draft horses or harness Only a minimal amount of information about draft breeds was shared, and that was in passing while the emphasis was placed on saddle horses. In preparation for this year's event, I introduced copies of Draft Horses, an Owner's Manual by Valentine and Wildenstein. When I brought the books to the study session the kids got really excited. They spent a lot of time looking through them, as everything presented there was relatively new information for them.

The Horse Bowl they were studying for is patterned after.the College Bowl program once popular on TV. Horse Bowl teams ideally consist of five members, of which four are seated and one serves as an alternate. A team consisting of four members is acceptable, and even a team of three may be seated, but is not eligible to receive or answer any bonus-point questions, which can hurt when it comes time to tabulate scores. At the regional contest each participating county tries to field teams of at least four members each for both the senior age level and the junior age level.

The teams decide which format they prefer—round-robin (every team plays all the other teams) or double elimination (any team that loses twice is out)—then draw numbers to determine which teams will compete against each other first. Two judges, a scorekeeper, a timekeeper, the moderator, and a couple of helpers greet two competing teams, and the questions begin. The first 16 questions are asked to individuals, then 16 more questions are open to anyone on the team. Suddenly it's over and the team with the highest score wins that match.

It gets pretty hectic for us leaders, because while the Senior Horse Bowl team is competing, the Junior competition is also going on, so it might be necessary to have two sets of 4-Hers in two different places at the same time. If it works out that only one of our teams is competing at a given time, the kids still have the Hippology contest to complete. Whereas the Horse Bowl is a team competition, Hippology is for individuals. A question I hear often is, "What do hippos have to do with horses?" They share the Greek root word for horse. Hippopotami are water horses; hippology is the study of horses—and study is definitely what these young people do in preparation for these contests.

Hippology is divided into three age groups: junior (ages 8 to 11), intermediate (12 to 14), and senior (15 to 18). Each level has its own room for the contest. In each room are 10 stations, each of which contains 10 horse-related items or 10 pictures on a poster. The items might be such things as veterinary supplies, pieces of grooming equipment, saddle parts, farrier tools, bits, feed or bedding samples, or pictures of breeds, color patterns, parasites, parts of anatomy, or equine events. As harrowing as identifying all those items may sound, the real teeth-grinder is that each station has a two-minute time limit during which the 4-Her must see and write down what's there before moving on to the next station.

Once upon a time our group had members from all over the county who worked on these contests. I attribute the current lack of involvement to increased activities at schools and in the lives of parents. Some counties are fortunate to still have large numbers of 4-Hers who are willing and able to participate, so they hold mini horse bowl and hippology contests to determine their teams. Our group was lucky this year to have 10 gung-ho guys and gals who evenly divided into our junior and senior teams. (As it turned out, one member of each team fell ill on contest day.) Oddly, nine of the 10 came from one 4-H club; the tenth was a brave young lady who beat down her shyness to join us. We hope she'll share with her club members what we studied, how we studied, and what we did to generate more interest in the contest for next year.

We intend to get more questions about draft horses included in future competitions. How? Through infiltration and a healthy dose of persistence. When my 9-year-old daughter Bethany decided to take her Belgian buddy Shorty as a 4-H project, she created quite a stir [see "Saved by Horse Power," Summer 2000]. During the next four years, she and Shorty showed up for halter class, the only draft in a sea of riding horses. Our daughter Liz, eagerly anticipating the time she could participate in 4-H and join her big sister in the show ring, was watching and practicing and getting ready. Then came the year our two 4-Hers took two draft horses to the fair and created a whole new stir.

Meanwhile as a 4-H club leader with a developing interest in draft horses, I'd been asked to help the coaches of our county Horse Bowl and Hippology teams, and discovered I enjoyed it. Then I was invited to join our county 4-H horse committee. I had quite a revelation at one meeting when another committee member commented that if Bethany and Liza were going to continue to show draft horses, perhaps the committee should add some draft horse classes to the 4-H horse show. I don't know why the idea had never occurred to me. What fun it was to discover how accommodating our fair board members were and how easy it was to add Draft Horse at Halter, Draft Horse Showmanship, and Open Driving with drafts included.

Suffering as I do from occasional bouts of foot-in-mouth disease, I found myself offering to furnish for this year's state Hippology contest posters for not one but two of the stations: foundation sires and draft horse harness. For each category I had to prepare three posters: junior level, intermediate level, and senior level.

I'm ashamed to admit that this year I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to submit 50 questions for consideration at our regional Horse Bowl contest, but rest assured I've begun working on 50 questions related to draft horses for next year. This is how infiltration and persistence pay off.

Stay with it long enough and pretty soon you'll have draft horse classes at the 4-H fair. Stay with it long enough and pretty soon you'll become involved on the regional and state level. It's not hard to get draft horses integrated into the 4-H program—just do it.

Lynne Howe of Lena, Illinois, is a leader of the Winslow Clovers 4-H Club and a co-coach for the Stephenson County 4-H Horse Bowl and Hippology contests. This article appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of Rural Heritage.