Equine instructor is tops in State Fair ranch horse competition

 For a second year in a row, a Central Wyoming College equine studies instructor placed first in the Ladies Open Ranch Horse competition at the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas.
Competing against equine professionals from the region, Jennifer Cole and her horse “Top Three Bugs” were required to complete several practical ranch work elements in specific patterns in a six-minute timeframe.
The order of the “dry work” elements, she said, is unknown until the morning of the show. The participants and their horses are also judged on cow work, which includes boxing or holding a cow, turning the cow each way on the fence and circling the cow in each direction at the center of the arena, and roping and stopping the cow.
The 2010 event was her first State Fair win, and she held onto the crown for another year. The competitors are all considered professionals in this division, she said, because they earn a living in the equine industry.
At the 2011 Fremont County Fair won the overall high score of the day in the stock horse challenge.
Cole is a CWC equine studies graduate who was hired at  two years ago to teach alongside longtime Professor Patti Stalley. “She is a wonderful asset to the program,” Stalley said of Cole, who also has animal and veterinary science degrees from the University of Wyoming.

In addition to teaching a variety of equine science courses, including stock horse use and showing, equine nutrition, horse production and fundamentals of teaching riding, Jennifer and her husband Jason Cole run a cow-horse ranch in the area.