As Fırat University, we participated in the 2nd Horsemanship Academic Workshop organized by Kırıkkale University and the Turkish Equestrian Federation (TBF) in cooperation with academicians from universities with Horsemanship and Horse Training Programs in Turkey.

The opening ceremony, which was held with the participation of Kırıkkale University President Prof. Dr. Ersan ASLAN, Turkish Equestrian Federation President Hasan Engin TUNCER, Kırıkkale University Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şevket EVCİ, Turkish Equestrian Federation Secretary General Önder KARAEŞ, Traditional Equestrian Sports Federation Board Member Dr. İbrahim KURBAN, started with a moment of silence and the national anthem and continued with opening and greeting speeches.

Kırıkkale University Secretary General Assoc. Member Şevket EVCİ made the opening speech of the workshop and said, “We held our first workshop in Kocaeli with the contributions of the Equestrian Federation. We are hosting the second one with the support of our Rector Hoca. I hope that the outputs we will obtain from the workshop will be beneficial to our students and us.”

Continuing the program, the Secretary General of the Turkish Equestrian Federation Önder KAARAEŞ thanked Kırıkkale University for hosting him and started his speech by saying, “We held our first workshop in Kocaeli with the participation of 13 universities and there have been some important changes and developments since then. We have stepped into a period in which the academy and the Turkish Equestrian Federation work closely. I believe that the good results we obtained in the first workshop will continue to increase with works like the ones we are doing today. I would like to thank our President Hasan Engin Tuncer for opening this path for us.”

President of the Turkish Equestrian Federation Hasan Engin TUNCER said, “One of the issues I care about most in my life is academic collaborations. We have identified deficiencies since the day I took office. We have seen that the most important deficiency is the lack of trainers. There has been no academic cooperation with trainers. We thought about what we could do to increase the quality of the community. We are going to our sector councils. We want to face the problems that we may encounter in 3 years from now. We need to fundamentally correct the mistakes. As a result of these strong works you have done, we will produce a beautiful report and pass it through YÖK. We will ensure cooperation between our Ministry, University and Federation. Our future works will be on internships and scholarships. There are very different economic equations behind horse breeding and equestrianism. Horse breeding and export revenues are at very high points in countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, France etc. In these countries, horse breeding and export sometimes rank second and sometimes third in the country's income ranking. I think it will contribute a lot to our country. I thank you all for attending.”

Expressing his pleasure in hosting the second Horse Breeding Workshop, the first of which was hosted by Kocaeli University, Kırıkkale University Rector Prof. Dr. Ersan Aslan said, “Despite it being a weekend, you came to Kırıkkale and our University and honored us. Hasan Engin Bey continues his work successfully with his team. Of course, our Secretary General Önder Bey has made significant contributions to these works. I find these works valuable both for horsemanship and equestrianism and for our country.” he said.

Traditional Equestrian Sports Federation Board Member Dr. İbrahim Kurban gave a short speech at the program and provided information about the works they have done within the federation. Dr. Kurban thanked those who contributed to the organization of the workshop and wished it to be a productive workshop.

The workshop program continued with the introduction of academicians who received their education from universities and their opinions and thoughts about the workshop. In the workshop, our university was represented by Prof. Dr. İsmail SEVEN.

The first session titled “Core Education Program” was started in the 2-day and 5-session workshop. The head of the commission established within the Core Education Program (CEP) to include the study contents in the regulations and legislations of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and to ensure curriculum unity was Prof. Dr. Gülşen GONCAGÜL and the commission members made a presentation explaining the details of the work done after the 1st Academic Workshop, the outputs obtained at the end of the interim meetings and the discussions after the process.

The decisions taken at the end of the sessions were reported. The workshop was concluded with a general evaluation carried out in line with the decisions taken and the continuation of the workshop meetings in the upcoming period and a general evaluation.