Anne Brzezicki
Director of Equine Laboratories
Equestrian Team Coach

B.S. University of Connecticut, 1972
M.Ed. Middle Tennessee State University, 1979

Contact

Courses

Equestrian Team
Information

Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association

Calendar of Events

Anne teaches all of the riding, teaching, and training classes in the MTSU Horse Science Program, and she coaches the MTSU Equestrian Team.

Anne grew up in the Connecticut 4-H Horse Program, showing hunters in AHSA and 4-H. While at the University of Connecticut, she rode on the original Equestrian Team, was an officer in Block and Bridle Club and judged on the Livestock and Horse teams. She taught equitation at the three Connecticut 4-H Horse Camps during the summers. Upon graduation from UConn, she taught the Animal Science Horse Practicum at UConn and coached the Equestrian Team. She co-coached the National Champion Hunter Seat Team in 1972.

She first came to MTSU to teach in August of 1976 and started the Equestrian Team here in 1977, developing a new IHSA region and including schools west of Virginia for the first time, a new and vigorous phase in IHSA growth. MTSU hosted the 1979 IHSA Nationals, introducing Western Horsemanship to the IHSA, Team competition to the Nationals, and AQHA as a first-time sponsor.

In the fall of 1979, Anne moved to Blacksburg, Virginia to teach at Virginia Tech, and she started the Equestrian Team there. Later, she moved to Florida to work for Andy Moorman as a teacher and breeding manager, and then returned to Tennessee to start her own teaching/training/breeding business in Murfreesboro. The horses she bred, trained, or showed, and the people she taught have won numerous awards, including AQHA Honor Roll and Congress and World Champion titles, and Best of America's Horse.

Returning to MTSU in 1989, she has since coached the Equestrian Team to numerous Regional and Zone Championships in both Hunter Seat and Western, and the Reserve National Champion Western Team, as well as the High Point Western Rider in the nation, Sarah Elder.

Anne serves on the Board of Directors of the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association, the Tennessee 4-H Horse Advisory Committee, the Membership Services Committee of the American Quarter Horse Association, and she is an officer in the Tennessee Quarter Horse Association. She has worked as a clinician for the Tennessee Walking Horse Owners and Breeders Association Academy Program, and the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration.

In 2003 Anne received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association. In 2004 she was named IHSA Regional Coach of the Year. Other awards she values include the Tennessee 4-H Horse Leader of the Year, National Horse Judging Team Coaches Association Award, and the TQHA President's Award.

She believes her greatest successes are those accomplished by her students.

CONTACT
MTSU Horse Science
314 West Thompson Lane
Murfreesboro, TN 37129

abrzezic@mtsu.edu

COURSES

ABAS 2400 Fundamentals of Horsemanship
Prerequisite ABAS 2110 or demonstrated competency in grooming, leading, tieing, tacking, and longeing an unfamiliar horse.

2400 includes

• 2 hours per week lecture covering the language, psychology and philosophy of communicating with and controlling the riding horse. Includes sections on behavior, the Equestrian Aids, types of horses, basic conformation, equine sport, understanding equine competition, the horse in motion, arena figures, turns and tracks.
• 2 hours per week lab, which is most often practice of riding skills but may include round pen practice and other hands-on skills. Both Hunter Seat and Western riding disciplines are covered.
• Mandatory attendance at two equine competitions.
• Five papers of approximately two pages on equine competition, two from those attended this semester and three from periodical or web research.

ABAS 3400 Intermediate Horsemanship
Prerequisite ABAS 2400.

3400 includes

• 2 hours per week lecture on the theory and use of lateral control of the horse regarding lateral flexion, lateral movements of the horse as the basis for isolating and controlling the shoulder, haunches and ribcage of the horse, then recombining the functional parts of the horse.
• 2 hours per week lab working on development of control of the track, gait, pace, impulsion, rhythm, shape of the horse.
• Leg yields, haunches-in, haunches-out, counter-bend, counter canter.
• Transitions, timing the use of the aids.
• Riding forward from the leg to the hand.

ABAS 4400 Advanced Horsemanship
Prerequisites ABAS 2400, 3400.

4400 includes

• 2 hours per week lecture on the theory, development and use of longitudinal control of the horse, collection, extension, longitudinal flexion, frame.
• 2 hours per week lab developing riding skills for longitudinal control, lengthening and shortening frame, length of stride.
• Obstacles, discipline specific movements, turns, tests, patterns and courses.

ABAS 4450 Techniques of Teaching Horsemanship
Prerequisites ABAS 2400, 3400, 4400.

4450 includes

• 2 hours per week lecture on teaching philosophy, psychology, safety,
• 2 hours per week lab beginning as a teaching assistant and advancing to teaching parts of a group lesson and then the entire lesson
• Building a series of lesson plans
• Using exercises, teaching balance an dbody control, utilizing equipment and obstacles.
• Teaching children and adults.
• Utilizing competition as a teaching tool.
• Special students

ABAS 4460 Behavior and Training of Horses
Prerequisites ABAS 2400, 3400, 4400

4460 includes

• Assignment of project horse for semester
• Group care of all training project horses including feeding, stalls, turnout, blanketing, exercise, healthcare.
• 2 hours per week lecture covering learning, psychology, behavior, training systems, training techniques, progress reports
• 4 hours per week lab, primarily with project horse, working on assigned progress and skills development