Juan Villa / The Collegian

Sarah Luke swings her leg up the left side of Prince O̢۪Pep, then back down.

She repeats the process on the right side, careful to keep her movements slow and steady. She finally sits down in the saddle and gets led around the round pen.

This has just been another day at the office for Luke.

“Working with the horses is less stressful than a paper-pushing office job,â€Â said Luke, taking a break from working with Prince, a 3-year-old male horse just beginning his training.

Luke, an equine science major, has been working at the Quarter Horse Unit at Fresno State for four and a half months.

There are nine students employed at the unit, and many volunteers. The students clean stalls, feed, train and ride the horses.

They also vaccinate the horses and deal with all aspects of the breeding and reproduction.

Student employees are only allowed to work 20 hours a week, according to the rules of Fresno State.

Most of them put much more time than that into the unit because they would like to pursue careers in the horse industry. They also said they enjoy the experience.

The horses have to be fed twice a day, with each feeding session taking anywhere from one to two hours.

Feeding requires two employees. One drives the tractor pulling the hay wagon and one throws hay to the horses.

There are well over a hundred horses that need to be fed, and they are spread over several different pastures and stalls.

The employees are also responsible for feeding horses at the Student Horse Center, which houses student owned horses and school horses for the equestrian team.

Feeding the horses requires loading 30 to 40 bales of hay onto the hay wagons.

There are two wagons; one for the Quarter Horse Unit and one for the Student Horse Center.

Each bale weighs around 100 pounds and must be lifted by hand onto the wagon.

“Working at the quarter horse unit is hard physical work but well worth it because I get to take a break from my heavy course load and put what I have learned in class to good use,â€Â Luke said.

The Quarter Horse Unit has many functions, such as training and selling horses and breeding them. However, its main purpose is education, mainly for equine science majors.

There are several different courses that are held at the unit.

Some of those courses include reproduction, different levels of horse training and some basic veterinary classes.

Dr. Anne Rodiek is the equine science professor, an adviser for animal science majors and runs the Quarter Horse Unit.

“Working out here is an unparalleled opportunity for hands on experience,â€Â Rodiek said. “[The students who work at the unit] are learning in the real world.â€Â

Sally Venn, a student employee, oversees the unit when Rodiek is not available. She is waiting to pursue her master̢۪s degree in equine science.

Venn is out at the Quarter Horse Unit around 10 hours a day. She rides several different horses, including her own that she keeps out there.

“I put in a lot of hours working out here, but I want to be a horse trainer so I ride to better myself as well,â€Â Venn said.