Jackie O'Connell, of Saunderstown, is going to Texas A&M on an equestrian scholarship.

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl

Improbable (adj.): not probable; unlikely to be true or to happen.

How to describe three South County girls who have known each other since kindergarten receiving athletic scholarships to Texas A&M University and the University of Georgia in a sport that no Rhode Island high school sponsors?

You start with improbable. And even that might not describe it.

Well, meet Lia Chafee and Katie Hagerty of Wakefield, and Jackie O'Connell of Saunderstown, three Rhode Island seniors you probably have not heard of who have received athletic scholarships to big-time Division I universities. Water polo players? No. Team handball standouts? Not quite.

Chafee, Hagerty and O'Connell ride horses, and they are going to college on equestrian scholarships. Chafee, a senior at the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Conn., and O'Connell, a senior at Lincoln School in Providence, are bound for College Station to ride for the Aggies of Texas A&M. Hagerty, a senior at the Prout School in Wakefield, is heading to Athens to ride for the Georgia Bulldogs.

Equestrian? And three Rhode Island friends going off to college on riding scholarships at the same time? That has to be a first.

"I couldn't imagine not riding anymore. It takes up a big part of your life, and I wanted to ride in college. I did track and soccer in high school, but riding is what I really love to do," said Hagerty.

"I always knew I wanted to ride in college. I can't imagine not having horses in my life. I wouldn't know what to do without them," Chafee said.

Like hockey players trudging through the predawn darkness to skate, or soccer players making travel squads for spring games, Hagerty, Chafee and O'Connell started riding when they were young.

"I started when I was 9. My mom signed me up for lessons. She thought I would enjoy it. I really loved it, and I kept doing it," she said.

She rode with Chafee and O'Connell at Iron's Gate Stables in Wakefield under the watchful eye of trainer Amy Eidson. Chafee had started riding at 5, received her first pony at 9 and started competing the same year. O'Connell started when she was 10.

Riding is expensive. A horse can cost $100,000 and more. Charges for boarding, lessons, equipment and competition add up.

"It's ridiculous," Hagerty said. "It's a large burden, and I appreciate what my parents have done. My brother Connor plays hockey, and my mom says the cost isn't even close."

Chafee said the sport is "financially, mentally and physically demanding."

The trio rode 12 months a year and competed on the junior circuit, learning to guide their horses around a course and to clear small jumps. As they improved, they won medals and ribbons at famous show grounds in Lake Placid and Saratoga before making it to one of the biggest winter horse shows in the world in Wellington, Fla. Think Fenway Park for the horse set.

"We were walking around in front of Olympians. I got to show [ride] in the International Ring. It was amazing," said Chafee, who finished third in her junior jumper class there.

All three spent part of this past winter in Wellington. Hagerty and O'Connell shared a condo. They worked on Mondays mucking stalls and cleaning water buckets, rode and studied during the rest of the week, and competed on weekends. They had tutors and sent their school work back to Prout and Lincoln.

Chafee, who transferred to Ethel Walker for its acclaimed riding program, flew down on weekends with about a dozen girls from school. They arrived on Thursday and returned to Hartford on a 5:30 flight Sunday.

"We'd finish riding at 3:30," Chafee said. "There was no time for showers. Most of the girls went on the plane wearing their tall boots and carrying their saddles. We got some strange looks. I always felt bad for people sitting near us."

They started looking at colleges a year ago, focusing on Division I schools with riding programs. The big difference in collegiate riding is that competitors ride a pool of horses, not their own. They wrote and sent tapes. Chafee and O'Connell visited Georgia and South Carolina on their drive back from Florida in March, and toured Baylor and Texas A&M later. Aggies assistant coach Linzy Woolf watched them ride at Lake Placid last summer.

"I had never noticed before, but there are coaches everywhere," Chafee said.

They visited the A&M campus together.

"We didn't know what Texas was all about and wanted to check it out. It's a totally different atmosphere. Everybody is really friendly," O'Connell said.

"We got to meet the girls on the team, and they all seemed incredibly supportive of each other," Chafee added.

They both liked the structure of the A&M program: training, lessons, workouts, study hall, tutors.

"It was the feel of the campus we liked," O'Connell said.

Woolf offered them scholarships worth 25 percent of the annual cost of an Aggie education, about $8,650, and each signed a National Letter of Intent last November.

"A lot of my classmates were very jealous. I was done with the college process in November," Chafee said. "It's really an honor they want you to ride there. I felt honored they wanted us for the whole package."

Hagerty wanted to go south and considered South Carolina, Elon and Auburn. Georgia, which she visited twice, was the clear winner. The Bulldogs have won four consecutive Southern Equestrian Championships.

"I really liked the school a lot. I liked the atmosphere and the spirit, especially with athletics. I wanted a school with a football team because of the social aspect and the school pride," she said.

She signed a Letter of Intent in December on her second visit. Her package covers 50 percent of tuition, or about $10,350.

"It was a great feeling, especially because riding is not widely known or recognized yet," she said.

The three friends will leave for college this summer, Chafee and O'Connell joining an A&M undergraduate student population of 46,000, close in number to the population of East Providence (48,000) and Hagerty joining the Bulldog student body of 25,000, a little larger than Bristol's population of 22,500. They will meet during the school year, when the Aggies and the Bulldogs ride against each other, three freshmen from Little Rhody with athletic scholarships to the big time.