Izzi Velinsky can’t quite remember the first time she interacted with a horse.
“There’s a picture of me with someone on a horse and I can’t reach the stirrups,” she said.
But she was hooked. Now, as she prepares to graduate from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a degree in animal science, Velinsky is turning that lifelong interest into a career. This summer, she will move to Oklahoma to begin working full-time as an assistant horse trainer, a path she credits largely to her experience with Nebraska’s Equestrian Team.
She said she wouldn’t have the skills or the connections for the first step in her career without the Equestrian Team. And, as a member of the Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program, she also learned the business side of owning and training her own horse, Sunny.
“I fell in love with the training side of the business,” Velinsky said. “In that world, you really have to work under someone for a while to make those connections, and I have so much to learn.”
Velinsky has had the “horse bug” for as long as she can remember, but growing up in Lincoln, opportunities to interact with them were limited. She came to the university with her sights on veterinary medicine.
“I came to UNL because I knew they had a vet program,” she said. “I thought that would be the only way I would get to work with horses regularly.”
Then, within her first weeks on campus, an Instagram post about Nebraska’s Equestrian Team changed her trajectory.
She immediately jumped in. The Equestrian Team competes in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association, but has non-competitive and competitive members, based on tryouts. During her first year with the team as a non-competitive member, she spent as much time as possible at the Animal Science Complex, helping with daily care and learning everything she could. Her dedication didn’t go unnoticed.
“The former coach could see I was really motivated to learn and became my mentor,” Velinsky said.
That mentorship opened doors beyond the arena. Velinsky began assisting at horse shows as a runner and transcriber, learning the behind-the-scenes operations of competition. She picked up practical skills — from driving a forklift to administering vaccines — and was working with horses every day.
Riding, however, was a skill she still needed to develop. Velinsky practiced relentlessly, and by her sophomore year, she earned a spot on the competition team.
“I realized any time in the saddle was good time, and any time I got, I took advantage of it,” Velinsky said.
She went on to compete nationally in reining and Western horsemanship. She capped her senior season at nationals May 1-3 in Mill Spring, North Carolina. There, she placed 10th in Team Reining and 9th in Team Horsemanship.
Along the way, she realized she didn’t want to become a veterinarian but loved her animal science classes. She changed her major and kept working with horses on campus.
“Honestly, I am very faithful, and so I just kind of let God direct me where I needed to go,” she said. “Doors were opening for me through my mentor and the team, and I was trying different things, volunteering at a therapeutic riding center, working at a vet clinic, taking all the horse classes offered and buying my own horse to train.
“I feel like everything I did taught me something, and I didn’t know what doors would open, but I was learning a lot.”
One of those doors opened to a horse trainer in Oklahoma, Todd Crawford. Crawford offered her an internship at his facility between her sophomore and junior year. Crawford recognized her passion and drive and invited her to repeat the internship the following summer. Now, she is joining his team as a full-time assistant.
“When I asked him if there was a place for me, he said I had the people skills and work ethic to make it in the industry, and that was huge for me,” she said. “I always felt like, since I only started working with horses in college, that I was so behind. Hearing that from him was really encouraging.”
Velinsky doesn’t know what doors will open next, but she credits her education and time with the Equestrian Team for giving her a solid foundation and confidence in her abilities to try and learn new things.
“I don’t know where my career will take me, but I definitely feel like this is the direction I’m supposed to be going,” Velinsky said. “When I was trying to figure out what I was doing in college, the Equestrian Team and all of these opportunities gave me purpose and pushed me to finish.”
