Ride-Like-A-Knight at Special Olympics

by RLAK Program Director Liz Dulski

This past weekend Ride-Like-Knight headed to Raleigh for the Special Olympics Equestrian Tournament. Rider Josh Dazey and Red Ted represented RLAK in 3 events which included showmanship, western riding, and western equitation.  

This year was a bit different because five other RLAK instructors came along to help work the horse show. The instructors include Hallie Myers, Claire Pollard, Sarah Lishen, Willow Goodman, and Stacy Canty. The instructors helped work the warm-up arena, ring stewards, rider check in and cheer on Josh and Coach Brooke Ellington. Josh and Red Ted had a successful weekend of showing. He took home a bronze medal in showmanship and fourth place in western equitation. Brooke said “Special Olympics gave myself and my student the opportunity to be in competition. Understanding that winning was not the most important aspect of the games.” 

After the weekend was over we asked the other instructors what they thought about the weekend. Claire Pollard said “Special Olympics gave me the opportunity to see the competition aspect of therapeutic riding and enabled me to see where I could take riders as an instructor in the future.” Claire was lucky to get to ring steward with a judge all day on Saturday. Sarah Lishen said “Over the weekend at Special Olympics I got the opportunity to make sure all riders where present for their classes. I got to meet the coaches one on one and gained knowledge as to why certain equipment was used.”  Overall it was a great weekend and learning experience for everyone involved. We will be back next year going for gold.

IHSA Results

The IHSA teams started off the season with a bang! The Western Team was Champion both Saturday and Sunday at our first home shows. They lead the region with 68 pts; Reserve Champion on both days was NCSU who have 62 pts. The Hunter Seat team earned 4^th place at the Tournament of Champions at Goucher College in MD – a very respectable placing in a competitive tourney.

Josh and Red Ted had an excellent showing at Special Olympics in Raleigh – more on that in a future post.

Go Knights!

Results from Western Shows

Saturday

Champion St. Andrews 34 pts.

Reserve Champion NCSU 30 pts.

Open Horsemanship A

2^nd Becca Alden

3^rd Kara Copeland

Intermediate Horsemanship II A

1^st Jarret Vaughn

Open Horsemanship B

2^nd Katie Mosca

Intermediate Horsemanship II B

2^nd Sarah Murvin

Advanced Horsemanship A

2^nd Phillip Alden

Intermediate Horsemanship II C

1^st Cailey Culp

5^th Samantha Bollinger

Advanced Horsemanship B

4^th Mark Mowbray

Intermediate Horsemanship II D

1^st Connor Smith

Reining A

2^nd Katie Mosca

Novice Horsemanship

1^st Logan Teeter – Section A

3^rd Erica LeSeur – Section A

2^nd Michelle Eld – Section B

1^st Natasha Worker – Section C

Beginning Horsemanship B

1^st Austin Trockenbrot

Sunday

Champion Team - St. Andrews - 34 points
Reserve Ch Team - NCSU - 32 points

Open Horsemanship
Becca Alden - 3rd - Section A
Kara Copeland - 3rd - Section B
Katie Mosca - 1st -Section B

Advanced Horsemanship
Phillip Alden - 3rd - Section A
Mark Mowbray- 2nd - Section B

Novice Horsemanship
Natasha Worker - 1st -Section A
Michelle Eld - 1st - Section B
Erica LeSeur - 5th -Section B
Logan Teeter Carter - 2nd - Section C

Intermediate Horsemanship
Dillon Vaughn - 1st - Section A
Alysse Lemme - 3rd - Section B
Cailey Culp - 2nd - Section C
Jarret Vaughn - 1st - Section D
Austin Trockenbrot - 1st - Intermediate I

Beginner Horsemanship
Danielle Eads - 1st - Section A
Tiffany Burch - 1st - Section C

Reining
Katie Mosca - 2nd and Reserve High Point Rider for the day

Tournament of Champions – Goucher College, MD

1st - Goucher College - 41 points
2nd - Savannah College of Art & Design - 36 points
3rd - Mt. Holyoke College - 34 points
4th - St. Andrews University - 30 points
5th - Randolph College - 28 points
6th - Bridgewater College - 27 points

Also competing - Virginia Tech, Lafayette College, West Virginia University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Mary Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Delaware, Rutgers University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Villanova, and Otterbein. Thanks to Goucher College for hosting such a great show!
All of our riders contributed points to the team total. Sabrina Vlacich won Intermediate Fences and Jessica Story won Walk, Trot, Canter. Cami Glaff was second in Intermediate Flat and Briley Branden was second in Novice Flat. Kelsey Kocher was fifth in Open Flat and Katie Thomas was fifth in Novice Fences. Paola Sierra-Danielsen was sixth in Walk, Trot and Kelsey Kocher was sixth in Open Fences. Congratulations riders and coaches Matt Arrigon and Tara Algieri!

Our Upcoming Weekend

Ride-Like-A-Knight is heading to Special Olympics today! Josh Dazey and Red Ted will be competing in several classes with Brooke Ellington as their coach. Liz Dulski and 5 students are travelling to help organize and staff the horse show. At home we are preparing for back to back western shows Saturday and Sunday to kick off the horse show season. The western team has some new riders, the region is growing so will some exciting competition at the barn this weekend!

Fall 2014 Begins!

So as always the beginning of the semester has been a whirlwind at the Equestrian Center! Lessons started on September 1^st (yes we have school on Labor day, but get the Wed. before Thanksgiving off) and from all accounts have been going well. The hunter seat coaches adopted the motto, “Stirrup free September” so all riders that are able have been riding without stirrups. Those that are not quite ready for that have been in 2 point for extended periods to get their legs deep and secure. Dressage has done some no stirrup work on and off the lunge finding muscles that these riders had forgotten about. Western riders have had equally demanding lessons with Carla and Lindsey.

Last weekend Matt did a teaching marathon for the IEA boot camp. Hunter seat riders volunteered to get the horses ready and on Sunday we held an IHSA style show with a beach themed draw table. Ride-Like-A-Knight started up on Sept 8. The program has a couple of new horses that are being eased into the program, Nora a Norwegian Fjord and Cooper an adorable paint pony. Riding Council has had its first general meeting with info on work study, what to wear, TH volunteering, plans for our 5k in Oct, team tryouts, the eventing club, up-coming western shows and a reminder from Peggy to do well in all things academic.

So this weekend is tryouts for IHSA, IDA and the hunter seat show team. Next weekend RLAK heads to Special Olympics in Raleigh, we have our first western shows of the year and a few students are going to Pinehurst to work the dressage shows at the Harness Track.