New in 2023, all 4-H members registered for a horse project, are required to complete the Equine Safety Training and Education Program (EquiSTEP). EquiSTEP is an annual statewide requirement for all youth participating in Ohio 4-H Horse Program activities. EquiSTEP replaces the statewide requirement of reading the Horses, Safety, and You (191R) resource and viewing the Every Time, Every Ride and Horses, Kids, and Ethics videos for youth and their families who are new to the 4-H horse program.
The EquiSTEP curriculum focuses on helmet safety, equine safety & handling, equine health & nutrition, and sportsmanship and is designed to rotate topics every year. The topics for this year’s EquiSTEP are highlighted in bold below.
STEP 1: Head (Helmet Safety)
Helmet Safety Video (Every Year)
STEP 2: Hands (Equine Safety & Handling)
YR 1 Equine Behavior
YR 2 Safety & Handling
YR 3 Tack & Equipment
STEP 3: Health (Equine Health & Nutrition)
YR 1 Assessing Horse Health
YR 2 Preventative Health
YR 3 Nutrition
STEP 4: Heart (Sportsmanship)
YR 1 Winning & Losing
YR 2 Discipline vs. Punishment
YR 3 Handling Adversity
Here is the link to enroll in/access EquiSTEP: go.osu.edu/equistep2023
To complete EquiSTEP, a participant must enroll using their own unique email address. (Participants should not use their school email addresses as the course enrollment invitation will be blocked by the school’s email system.) Participants must view all five videos (introduction and STEPS 1-4) which last approximately one hour in total. Once the videos are completed, participants will be able to access the 10-question quiz. Participants must complete the quiz associated with the training and achieve a minimum score of 7 (out of 10) in order to pass the training. Once the quiz is successfully completed, participants will need to complete the course survey to trigger a certificate of completion. The certificate will be emailed to the participant’s email address as well as their county’s 4-H email address. The participant must select their correct county to trigger the email to the correct email address and they must click on the submit button at the end of the survey to trigger the email.