Aiming for the win

Early mornings workouts, late night games and busy weekends may be the typical routine for a student-athlete, but for out-of-state student Olivia Burstad her sport looks a little different than most — no ball, no field or court, instead an arena with her horse and a firearm. Brustad competes in mounted shooting, a timed event that requires riders to navigate a pattern while firing at ballon targets at top speed.  

While this sport may sound unfamiliar to many, mounted shooting has been a staple of Brustad’s life for as long as she can remember. 

A family tradition  

 “My grandpa has been competing for over 20 years, so I have always been around it,” Burstad says. “I didn’t start competing until I was 13, but I loved it even before then.” 

Burstad competed with her first horse, Reba, until this past year when she got her new horse, Ninja. Just like any sport, Burstad says, having a good relationship with your teammate is important to compete well.  

“The mental game is huge, keeping yourself calm, keeping your horse calm, and then still being accurate, it's just a whole mix of moving pieces,” Burstad says. 

This past season, Burstad and Ninja won the Limited Champion title at the Western North Central Regionals with the quickest time, 48.949 seconds, and best accuracy.  

Brustad’s mounted shooting competitions have led her across the nation to Nevada, Tennessee, Minnesota, Nebraska  and more. While travelling, she met friends who she now considers family.  

 “Those are some of my favorite memories, just getting to see so many people... I have friends that live out West and friends that live out East, our community is just so big,”  Burstad says.  

Training like a champ 

Mounted shooting is a 365-day commitment, and training starts long before the first competition.  She spends hours every week riding and building trust with Ninja. Practicing possible patterns, making sure the horse stays calm during the fire of a gun and perfecting the quick draw of the gun and accuracy of the shots all lead up to having a successful ride when it counts most, says Burstad.

The preparation all leads up to competition day.

Burstad competes in the shotgun division where she uses two .45 revolvers, like they had in the 1800s. The Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association oversees scoring and class advancement. Riders compete in men’s, women’s and senior divisions, each with classes one to six, plus a class for riders 11 and under. Everyone starts in class 1 and moves up by earning qualified wins. 

At each competition, a random pattern is drawn, and every division rides the same one. Differences between divisions come from firearm types used and specific class rules, but no matter the rules or the firearm type, each ride takes total commitment. That commitment follows Burstad back to Manhattan where she balances her two worlds.

A campus connection  

For Burstad, a Menomonie, Wisconsin, native and animal sciences and industry major, K-State quickly became home, when her college life and mounted shooting world came together. 

While studying in Manhattan, Burstad keeps her horse in a neighboring town to stay in practice throughout the season. Balancing both school and competition takes planning and dedication, but she’s made it work.  

“I build my class schedule around competition season, I take classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can travel to shoots on the weekends,” says Burstad.  

During a spring competition her second semester, Burstad met K-State alumnus and mounted shooting trainer Dave Hassett. What started as a random connection in the arena quickly turned into something much bigger. This connection eventually opened the door for a summer internship. Brustad’s summer with Hassett expanded her knowledge on training horses for mounted shooting, fine-tuned her competition skills and gave her more opportunities. 

Watching her K-State and mounted shooting family blend was unexpected, but now she can’t imagine her life any different.  

“It’s just so cool to see my mounted shooting family and my K-State family collide.” 

Morgan Donaldson is a senior in agricultural and natural resources communications. This story originally appeared in the spring 2026 edition of The Agriculturist — the student-produced magazine of the College of Agriculture.