Arms flailing, guns firing, legs flying and hooves beating. These are some of the images many see when thinking of horseback riding. Contrast that with riders’ heads held high, silence, undetectable motions and formal precision.

The second description is the way the UW-Eau Claire equestrian club rides their horses.

“Anybody can get on a horse, but not just anybody can go out and show and do well. It takes a lot and a lot of work,” said sophomore club member Angie Manlick.

The club started last spring when three of its members were boarding horses at Trinity Equestrian Center, S5300 state Highway 37, and began talking. After awhile the club’s size grew by word of mouth and the Blugold Organizational Bash.

The club now has eight show team members; eight competing in hunt, or English, style riding and five that compete in western style.

The team plans on competing in five to six different shows during the fall semester and then in another five during the spring semester.

At competitions the members do not bring their own horses, they each draw a horse and then compete, with no warm-ups.

“It’s kind of the luck of the draw,” said senior Andrea Lang. “You have to ride the horse the way it wants to be ridden.”

Being able to ride the horse the way it wants to be ridden takes lots of hard work and time, Manlick said

“Just like any sport, you do a lot of different exercises and stretches,” Manlick said. “We do that same thing in the saddle.”

The show team competes across the Midwest, from North Dakota to Madison to Nebraska. Many of the schools they compete against have equine programs, like UW-River Falls and the University of Minnesota-Crookston, said sophomore Sarah Arneson.

Having a smaller team – most teams have around 15 to 20 riders – can have its advantages and disadvantages, sophomore Karla Jenson said.

“Because we take our own vehicles,” Jenson said.

Not filling all divisions is not something that has stopped the team from being very competitive. At the team’s first competition in Madison all team members placed, something Lang said was “pretty impressive.”

A highlight for Manlick, Lang and Jenson was finishing as a high point team at a competition in Nebraska. All three finished first in their divisions, Lang said.

“First of all, we want to make the best presentation of Eau Claire that we can when we go to a show and so far I think we’ve really succeed at that,” Jenson said. “We kind of came out of nowhere and surprised other teams.”

Teams can earn points throughout the season and go to regionals, zone and nationals.

Arneson said eventually the team would like to be able to compete at the national level, but in the first year of competition the chances are slim of anyone qualifying.

The team would also eventually like to expand in numbers, but for right now is happy with its size.

“I think our size is good right now,” Arneson said. “We don’t have a thousand horses right at our fingertips.”

The team practices every Monday and Tuesday night, and each club member does chores at Trinity one night a week in gratitude for the donation of the building and horses.

“(Trinity) is really important to us,” Arneson said.

The time spent together during the week and on weekends for shows have left the team with a sense of family, Manlick said.

“(Riding is) a lot of hard work, but it’s a lot of fun,” Arneson said. “It’s a good stress reliever, and it’s so peaceful out here.”