Submitted Photo The Ward County 4-H team that won the 2024 National Horse Quiz Bowl consists of Hailey Schauer, Mackenzie Wipf, Mikaela Woodruff and Emily Fannik.

Four youth representing Ward County 4-H brought home the gold from the Western National Round-Up Horse Quiz Bowl for a second time on Jan. 6.

Hailey Schauer, formerly of Carpio, Mackenzie Wipf, from Ryder, Mikaela Woodruff, from Edgeley, and Emily Fannik, from Max, traveled to Denver, Colorado, early last month to compete in the Western National Round-Up. The challenge they studied and prepared for was the Horse Quiz Bowl – a competition between two teams of four youth to determine who knew the most about horses.

To earn the right to attend nationals, a team, whose members must be between ages 14-18, must win at the state competition. The Ward County team won at the state event last April in Fargo.

Despite winning, Woodruff said they did not actually commit to going to the Horse Quiz Bowl until September.

In preparation for the national competition, the four girls spent about 17 hours studying together over Zoom meetings with their coaches, Paige Brummund and Emily Burkett with the Ward County Extension Service. Despite having to study via Zoom rather than in-person, they were able to improve their teamwork. Once they reached Denver, the team spent around another six hours studying.

Woodruff said she spent about two hours every week studying by herself in the months leading up to the competition as well. Having been in the 4-H program for so long, she already had a base of knowledge from her participation in the Hippology contest in 2023.

In the quiz bowl, the participant who was quickest to press a buzzer received first crack at the question, but if wrong, the opposing team had the opportunity to steal the point. The competition began one on one between single members of each team but eventually changed to full teams going head to head. Some of the toss-up questions came with bonus questions and extra points.

The Ward County team’s first round did not go as expected. Brummund described the girls as a little hesitant at the beginning, costing them the first round. The competition was double-elimination, which means a team can lose two rounds before it is knocked out.

The pressure was on afterward. If they had not defeated South Dakota in the second round, they would have had to pack it in and call it a day.

They did not let it mess with their heads, however.

“They vowed they were going to push the button. Buzz in and answer after that and not be shy anymore,” Brummund said.

There were nine rounds of competition. The Ward County team took on one team twice, as the other team had remained undefeated up to that point. They pulled together as a team and came out on top for the second year in a row.

In addition to capturing points for the team to advance to the next round, there were also individual points at play. According to results listed by North Dakota State University, Woodruff placed first, Fannik placed third and Wipf placed eighth.

Woodruff described the contest questions with multiple answers as the most difficult.

“For example, one of the questions described a color of horse as red with a flaxen mane and tail and asked for the name of that color. Everyone on my team knows that color, but that color is called both sorrel and chestnut. Sometimes either one is accepted, but often they’re looking for one or the other,” she said.

The hardest questions for her were the ones relating to the horse industry, such as rodeos and showing. She does not have horses, and she said learning that sort of information from books was not easy, either.

The easiest questions asked about the more advanced topics, such as “How many inches are in a hand?”

To celebrate their victory, the girls followed their team tradition and went to an Italian restaurant for dinner.