It is a Great Time to be a Knight!

This has been a very exciting (slightly overwhelming) semester. Starting with the dressage team qualifying for their National Championships mid-March, followed by the western team a week later and then the hunter seat team over Easter weekend. The words trifecta and hat trick have been heard in the barns lately. St. Andrews is the only school in the nation to have all three of its teams qualify for their national championships in this year. It is also a first for St. Andrews to have all three teams going to their respective National Championships. Ashley, Carla and I were interviewed for the Laurinburg Exchange on Monday and Jason Chisari. You can read his story here.


Needless to say, we are continuing to work our team riders as hard as we can. Alie McGraw was so excited to qualify for IHSA Hunter Seat Nationals. When I saw her after she returned from Goucher College the first words out of her mouth were, “Jackie – all those lessons paid off!” Fitting in practice around school work and keeping grades up is required at St. Andrews so the students have become masters of time management and prioritizing.

The dressage team is hosting a fun show this Sunday called the Sportsmanship Challenge where the entire team will be competing against invited riders from Elon and Virginia Tech. Each team of 4 riders will have representatives from each of the three schools and the riders select which horses they ride and coach themselves. I am very excited to have Kris Hamilton judging at C and our own Carla Wennberg has agreed to judge at E to give everyone the opportunity to ride for two judges. Next week the western team will be hosting Debra Jones Wright for a day long clinic to get them tuned and ready. The hunter seat team has already had several clinics this year so they will be working hard with Ashley for their final preparation in the run up to Nationals.

On top of all this excitement The Ride-Like-A-Knight Therapeutic Horsemanship program was just recognized by the “North Carolina Association of Community Based Intermediate Care Facilities for the Mentally Retarded & Community Alternatives Programs Service Providers” better known as “The Providers Association” with the 2012 Group Achievement Award. RLAK was nominated for this award by the Monarch Group who participate in the RLAK program.

A student posted on our facebook page last week, “it is a great time to be a Knight!” I have to agree!