2008-09 Riding Blog - Week 4

by Teresa Cambell - November 12, 2008
(photos courtesy of Leelawan Kaewsawang)

Our first regional home show of the year was on October 25. The horses were neat, and the barn looked good. Going into the show, the we knew that we needed to produce our best performance in order to maintain our narrow lead over the University of Massachusetts in the standings.

Mount Holyoke team members worked hard in the barn to make sure everything ran smoothly. In between jobs, we enjoyed some delicious food from some of the parents - the cheese platter from Katie Viechnicki’s parents was fabulous! Mount Holyoke riders also performed well in the show ring, bringing in 15 blue ribbons! The horses were well behaved for the most part, except for a few ill-timed stops on the part of Mikey and Rhumpy.

It was great to see several alumnae - Trina Baker and recent graduates Lorin Weaver and Emily Woodruff, back at the Equestrian Center. They all competed well in the alumnae classes and got to ride some of our new favorites: Seuss, Pongo and Tucker.

The ride off for High Point Rider was edge-of-your-seat intense. There were four riders from Mount Holyoke: Margaret Swanson, Lora Ciborowski, Tracey Mack and Cassie Herman. UMass also had one rider: Kate Lawrence. They all came out on five of our beautiful chestnuts and all rode extremely well. The judge had them perform various tests and slowly narrowed the playing field down to two final riders: Kate Lawrence and Cassie Herman. It was impressive to watch such excellent riding by both riders, and the judge finally eliminated the last one with a tricky bit of instructions. The judge asked for a change of lead, but unlike previously in the ride off, she did not specify a change of direction. Unfortunately, Cassie was caught by that and changed directions, making Kate the High Point Rider. Reserve High Point Rider went to Cassie and High Point Intermediate Rider went to Lora Ciborowski.

At the end of the day, despite our impressive collection of blue ribbons, the points came out to be very close. Mount Holyoke took the show with 41 points, and UMass was close on our heels with 40!  Though the win was a bit close for comfort, everyone was happy that we won our home show, especially after the fourth place showing we made at it last year. It was our second win of the semester, and we were confident that we were firmly back on our game. We had a five point lead in the region, and we were looking forward to the last regional show of the season at Amherst College on November 8.