|
May 9
, 2003
Dressage
Team Repeats as National Champions
| 
Photo:
Don Mazzeo
Mount
Holyoke’s winning dressage team. (Left to right) Cathrine
Tauscher ’06, Nicole Mazzeo ’05, Amelia Chappelle
’03, Rachel Leah Kraus ’04, and coach Rebecca
Schurink. |
For
the second consecutive year, MHC riders have defeated the best
collegiate dressage teams from around the country, defending their
national championship at the 2003 Intercollegiate-Interscholastic
Dressage Association (IDA) Nationals, held April 24–27 at
Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, Virginia.
In the team competition, captain Amelia Chappelle ’03; Rachel
Leah Kraus ’04, Nicole Mazzeo ’05; and Cathrine Elizabeth
Tauscher ’06 defeated the strongest field ever for an Intercollegiate-Interscholastic
Dressage Association championship event. Competition included
teams representing Centenary, Oberlin, Lake Erie, Virginia Intermont,
and St. Andrews Presbyterian Colleges; California Polytechnic
State, Johnson and Wales, and North Carolina State Universities;
the University of California at Davis, the University of Findlay,
and the University of New Hampshire.
Mount Holyoke riders scored several more victories during the
individual competition. For the third straight year, Chappelle
finished first in the first level, while Katy D’Ambly ’05
placed third in the upper training level. At the lower training
level, Tauscher was third and Nikki Eula ’04 sixth.
“We worked so hard for this, and it’s the icing on
the cake that we won,” said Chappelle, the team’s
captain for the past two years. Challenged by some disappointing
performances and bad luck during the fall semester, the team made
adjustments and “really pulled it out in the end. We’ve
always pulled through when it counts,” she said.
“They all rode to the very best of their abilities and were
able to maximize the potential in themselves and in the horses
that they rode,” said Becky Schurink, the team’s coach
since 1997 and newly elected chair of the IDA’s Rules and
Standards Committee. “My riders really started to rise to
the occasion these last few months and their skill level and confidence
were remarkably high. It’s exciting for me to work with
such self-motivated, determined, bright individuals who have the
capacity to focus on the task at hand.”
This is the second year the IDA has held a national championship.
Of the nine Northeastern championships the IDA has held, Mount
Holyoke riders have won eight times. The IDA is experiencing rapid
growth in response to the sharply rising interest in dressage,
the fastest-growing equine sport in the United States. Established
by a half-dozen schools in 1995, the IDA now has thirty-three
member schools and 350 rider members—and continues to grow.
The IDA is affiliated with the United States Dressage Federation,
which comprises colleges and universities throughout the United
States.
Dressage has been likened to figure skating and ballet. Points
in dressage are awarded for the execution of precision movements
by a horse in response to barely perceptible signals from its
rider. Dressage is considered “classical training,”
because it uses gymnastic exercises—a series of movements
and figures—that have been studied and developed for centuries.
The Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria, with its white Lipizzan
stallions, is perhaps the most familiar institution dedicated
exclusively to the classical art of riding. Once an activity of
royalty, today dressage has evolved into a discipline and competitive
sport accessible to all horses and riders.
Interscholastic competitions pose a particular challenge: Riders
do not bring their own horses. Rather, the horses are provided
by the host institution, with teams choosing their horses by lot.
Each rider has just ten minutes to become familiar with her horse
before competition begins.
Michelle Hoffman ’98 was instrumental in the creation of
the Intercollegiate-Interscholastic Dressage Association.
The
counter is
2,028
|
