By JORDAN SMITH
Sports editor
Once reserved for royalty and the extremely wealthy, equestrianism as a sport has pervaded into high school athletics in the form of the Interscholastic Equestrian league. The league, a non-profit organization and the governing body in the world of high school riding, organizes four shows a year in which 69 Southern Californian schools compete against each other in an array of equestrian styles, classes and divisions. The IEL describes its primary goals as being “to support and develop athletes for regional and national competition in equestrian sports; to encourage a knowledge of horsemanship; to encourage teamwork in fair and friendly competition,” as well as several other aspirations of encouraging the skills of young riders.