Chicago student's gone country . . . and knows both ends of a horse

By Tamber Weston

February 26, 2005 | When Utah State University senior Rachel Allen came to USU five years ago, she was what her mom called a "city girl." But when the city girl met a country boy everything changed.

Now Allen is doing things she never would have imagined, such as artificially inseminating horses. That's right: She's gone country.

Allen grew up in Chicago, where she enjoyed hanging out at the mall with her friends as often as she could.

After moving to Utah she met Shiloh Allen in January 2001 and got engaged in August. Shiloh is from Montana, where he grew up on the family ranch. The first time Rachel went to visit the ranch she was amazed to be so close to cows. But the real turning point came for Rachel later on.

During her engagement to Shiloh the two worked at a resort together. One day the horse of one of the tour guides came back to the resort without the guide.

In a frenzy, Shiloh and Rachel mounted two horses and set off to find the guide.

"I thought we'd trot at the most," said Rachel.

She got more than she expected.

As Shiloh set off in a dead run, Rachel's horse followed. Rachel was inexperienced and nearly fell. She told Shiloh that they'd have to slow down, but because of the seriousness of the situation he refused and Rachel had to stay behind.

She knew at that moment what she was marrying into and she had to make a choice. Her choice was to enroll in ADVS 1600, Western Horsemanship Part I, and hone some horse skills.

In this class Rachel said she learned "how to sit on a horse." The following semester she took Part 2 of the class, where she learned more complicated maneuvers such as getting a horse to turn while running, the next semester she enrolled in Part 3 of the course where she learned to break colts.

"It's funny," said Rachel. "You just get hooked."

Rachel is enrolled in ADVS 5190, Horse Management, where she is learning how to care for and maintain a horse, including artificial insemination. Before the experience, Rachel told her mother what she planned to do in class. Her mother reminded her of a time when Rachel could hardly stand to handle raw poultry and wondered how she would ever get through learning how to artificially inseminate a horse.

"It's all in your head," said Rachel. "At first I thought, 'You want me to put my hand where?'"

She did fine throughout the first part of the experience but toward the end she realize what it was she had just done and thought "Wow, I want to get out of here." She nearly forgot the final step of closing up where she had just been, to prevent infection.

In the class, Rachel is also learning about horse acupuncture and much more.

Last week Rachel competed in her first horse show competition where she took a third and fourth places in her division.

Now when Rachel and Shiloh go to the ranch in Montana Rachel feels right at home.

"I now know more about the horses, than my in-laws," said Rachel with a smile. "I'm showing them what to do with their stuff."

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