Sara Stark
Range View 4-H
Jul 23, 2025
My name is Sara Stark, I am 17 years old and in Sacramento County Range View 4-H Club. The 28th annual California 4-H (CA 4-H) Horse Classic State Show and Educational Contest was held at Brookside Show Park in Elk Grove, Ca in July of 2024. 4-H youth demonstrate their equine knowledge through participation in state qualifying equine educational contests. The top placing Senior 4-H individuals or teams in the educational contests have an opportunity to advance to the national 4-H contests and represent California 4-H at the Western National Roundup in Denver, Colorado. I was a senior participant on a combined county team at this event. I started there at first not knowing what it would be like since I was the only senior from my county that attended and we never participated in educational contents in my county. My team helped me understand what to do and what it was all about. We competed for 2 long days. My personal favorite event that we participated in was Horse Bowl, because it may have been challenging but was fun to do as a team. In Horse Bowl, we are asked questions and have an opportunity to be called on to earn points for our team. When the competition ended, it was time for the awards ceremony. It was the time we were waiting for to see what all our hard work got us. We placed first in Horse Judging, Horse Bowl, and overall Hippology. A few months later we received an email notifying us we qualified to attend the Western National Roundup in Denver, Colorado. We were a team of 4, but unfortunately a team member could not attend. We were a team of three and our team studied independently and virtually because we were from three different counties. It was difficult being so far apart but we powered through and when we arrived in Denver, we continued to study. The first day we completed our individual written exams and slide-show at the Colorado State University (CSU) Spur Extension. The testing was very challenging, but it was exciting. The second day we competed in Horse Judging in the Denver Coliseum Arena. We were spread out across the arena and not allowed to speak to our team members. It was fun to judge the 4 horse classes, Western Reining, English Rail, and 2 Performance Halter Classes. My favorite was to judge the Reining class. All teams rode a bus back to the CSU Spur campus and competed in our team problem and stations. We had 4 team problems to discuss and had 10 minutes to talk with our team members about what to say and in the 10 minute overall presentation. I loved touring the CSU Spur veterinary observation rooms where we were able to see into the pet surgery rooms for dental work and spaying/neutering. I also visited the equine rehabilitation facility where they had water treadmills, salt water baths, and other things to help to rehabilitate the horses. We visited the Western Stock Show and watched sheep and cattle showmanship classes. It was interesting to see how the people show differently than I do here in California with my show sheep. I loved walking around to see all the vendors and the livestock barns. While in Denver, we explored the city and had cocoa in Union Station, rented electric scooters in freezing temperatures, and ended our trip at the Western Stock Show eating funnel cake. Thank you to everyone who supported our California Hippology and Horse Judging Teams both financially and all the effort that went into getting us to Nationals. I want to give special thanks to our state Coordinator, Erica Pettey and my coach, Rosella Arnold. We never would have made it without you.