If the idea of horseback riding in the quiet hills of the Southern Tier made you any more excited to sign up for a gym course, our front page story may have come as a surprise to you.

Indeed, it shocked both our editorial staff and the equestrian owners at the South Wind Stables, who may have to shut their doors after 28 years of offering horseback riding to Binghamton University students.

The dissolution of horsemanship courses is devastating for a local business that depends on revenue from students, and damaging for those who want to widen their horizons through physical education.

According to the head of the physical education department, BU is ‘directing the program more toward health and wellness.’

What this strategy fails to include ‘ and what is perhaps most painful to students eager to get outside and breathe the fresh air ‘ is that the activities being cut are in no way excluded from ‘health’ and ‘wellness.’ This line of thinking seems to equate physical education with a classroom setting; revolutionary, to be sure, but far from Fidel.

Indeed, students who spend much of their sedentary days in the library, in class or on the couch, will likely get more out of fitness (and active) courses than they do learning that bananas are rich in potassium and that there are two pedals on a bicycle.

And we have notice that more programs ‘ particularly outdoor activities like kayaking and skiing ‘ are set to be cut as well, further eroding the direct ties Binghamton has with the local economy.

The decision from the physical education department comes despite the fact that students pay their instructors’ salaries from their own pocket and that the stables (and not BU) take care of insurance. Added to the overwhelming and consistent interest in outdoor classes like horsemanship, we find it unbelievable that BU only gave the stables one semester of notice before dissolving their near three-decade relationship.

All hope is not yet lost, however. Instead of sentencing this off-campus establishment to a slow decline marked with sentimental horse auctions, and instead of plaguing students with fewer interesting and compelling options with which to meet their gym class requirement, it is worth exploring other options.

For no extra cost to BU at all, let us kayak, let us ski and don’t ship out our equine classmates.