Team is in neck-and-neck race with U-Crookston, UW-River Falls and NDSU
By MCKAYL BARROWS/Murphy News Service
The final competition for the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association-Region 7 will be held February 2016 at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities campus to determine which of the 11 schools competing in this region of the IHSA will earn the regional champion title.
The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Western Equestrian team is number one in the region, but only by a slim margin.
Close competitors for the regional title include the University of Minnesota-Crookston, University of Wisconsin-River Falls and North Dakota State University.
If the U-TC team is able to hold on to its lead, it will receive the Regional Champion title and move on the semi-finals this spring in New York. That would be the first team’s first ever trip to the semi-finals.
“It’s super exciting that we have just stayed consistent and have been able to kind of hold our lead, going into the last show of the season,” said U student and U-TC team captain Lauren Hartmann. “If our calculation of points is correct, which it should be, we are going into the last show leading by one point, so it’s really close, but hopefully we have that home show advantage again.”
The final competition will be held on the weekend of Feb. 20, 2016 at the Leatherdale Equine Center on the U’s St. Paul campus.
“It’s really cool that we are going to be able to possibly go represent the U of M at semi-finals for equestrian. Nobody really expects for us to be that great, so its going to be really cool, ” first-year U-TC team member Monica Johnson said
Equestrian club president Miranda Jost said the team believes the at-home advantage of the final competition of the season will help it earn the title of regional champions.
“At our home show we have home show advantage kind of they call it, so we know the horses that we are riding,” Johnson said.
Two of the top three riders in Region 7 competing to be the regional champion rider are members of the U-TC team. The regional champion rider in the division will surpass the semi-final competition and automatically move on to the national competition.
The team has had a successful season, earning high-point team and high-point rider status both days at the first competition of the season.
A “point rider” for each level (walk-trot, intermediate, novice, advanced and open) is chosen confidentiality by the team coach and team captain at the beginning of each show. The scores of the point riders are the only scores to count toward the teams overall final score. The high point or champion team of the day is determined by whose point rider accumulates the most points.
The team’s success at the first show was followed by reserve high-point and reserve high-point rider one out of two days at U-Crookston; high-point team, high-point rider and reserve high-point rider on one out of two days at North Dakota State University; high-point team one out of two days at the most recent competition help at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
The U-TC team operates as a club and is one of the only teams in their division that is completely student-run. Out of the 11 teams in the division, most all of them receive school funding whether it is as a Division II sport or a funded club.
There are a few disadvantages to being completely student-run. Members must pay out of pocket to compete and they don’t have a practice facility on or near campus.
“To have that recognition would be cool, but at the end of the day I think it’s definitely balanced by the fact that we have a little bit more independence in choosing our coach and running things how we would like to,” Hartmann said. “One positive [of not being funded by the school] is that we get to pick our coach, it’s not just a university faculty member who is assigned to us.”
Hartmann credits some of the team’s success this season to the team’s hard work and the dedication of Western team coach Jamie Moeller, who has been with the team for about six years now.
“What’s really special about [our team] is that I think the whole feeling of teamwork and everyone trying really hard before competition comes from the coach first and then through me as the captain and then everyone kind of gets that feeling,” Hartmann said.
Members are required to practice once a week at the practice facility in Stillwater, Minnesota, and attend one weekly meeting.
“This year we have had a fantastic team pretty much everyone, when a competition is coming up that weekend will go and double practice, sometimes even more,” Hartmann said.
Since the team is not funded through the U, the members try to do as much fund-raising as possible. Team members clean up at the state fairgrounds after horse shows for funding.
Hartmann said the University of Minnesota system does provide funding for the U-Crookston team.
“I am so proud of the extra work that everyone has put in this fall, and I really think that it is what has contributed to our success so far,” Hartman said. “Because of that, it’s important that we stay practicing over break if we can, and pick up where we left off when the spring semester starts.”
Reporter McKayl Barrows is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota