Before the two schools’ football teams squared off in the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday, the Texas mascot Bevo decided he wanted nothing to do with the Georgia mascot, Uga.
When working with living mascots, Texas Tech said the handlers have to prepare for all types of things that can happen. TexasTech officials said the Masked Rider not only has to have extensive training with horses prior, but has to work with the mascot every single day. They said training an animal to handle stressful situations isn’t easy.
“You just have to stay calm and you just have to feel the horse,” said Masked Rider, Lyndi Starr.
They said rigorous training goes into working with the university mascot. Starr said shetrained with horses for 14 years before doing this job. She said they have nearly 6 months before they do the next football run, so that gives them the summer to train for running in a packed football stadium.
“Anticipating situations is always a big thing, so when I’m in the football field I’m always anticipating someone coming up,” Starr said.
Stephanie Rhodes, director of the Spirit Program at Texas Tech, said safety is very important to them. She saidTexas Tech had an incident with their horse Double T a couple decades ago.
“We had a scenario in 1994 where the horse, the saddle came off the horse in the stadium and the horse unfortunately died, since that time for sure we have become very safety cautious,” Rhodes said.
Former masked riders said taking the mascot thousands of miles away can also be overwhelming for the animal.
“When we have places where you go that are a different environment than Jones AT&T Stadium, we’ll get the horse in there early, a lot of coordination goes in there beforehand,” said former masked rider, Stacy Stockard.
