"Daisy and Tim both rode amazingly," captain Abby Donahue '06 said. "They stayed cool in the high stress environment and were able to channel their nerves, while other competitors buckled under the pressure."
Malone competed in the Cacchione Cup, a two-part class (including a phase over jumps and a phase on the flat) that brings together the high point scoring Open riders from the 27 regions in the country. Thanks to a very high score of 89.5 on the flat (scores are given out of 100) Malone sat in sixth after these first two phases.
"Tim really performed," team member Jeff Brown '05 said. "In his flat class, many people fell apart when they had to drop their stirrups, but Tim looked just as strong as he had with them."
Invited back for an additional jumping round to determine the final standings with the other riders in the top ten, Malone, riding a horse named California Kid, received a mark of 89 to boost him to third place overall.
"I really tried to gallop around and California Kid performed just as I asked him, allowing me to move myself back up to third overall," Malone said.
Coach Sally Batton was pleased, but not surprised, with Malone's performance.
"In the most amazing comeback I've ever seen in my 20 years of Intercollegiate Nationals, Tim put in a great third phase jumping round that moved him ahead three spots into a final finish of third place," she said. "The Cacchione Class is like the Kentucky Derby of the Intercollegiate horse show world. All the riders in the class who are the best and the brightest riders in their Regions all meet at Nationals to see who can take home the Cup."
Freund finished seventh In Individual Open Fences in a performance that her teammates thought could have earned her a higher placement.
"Daisy had a great ride," Brown said. "She didn't have the best horse draw, but she was able to get everything done pretty perfectly. She wasn't given a score equal to her performance, but even so, seventh in the nation isn't too bad."
Freund said that riding a sluggish horse forced her to be aggressive on the course and ride her best.
"I drew a very cute grey called Carter from Hollins University. Carter was a little on the lazy side. He needed motivation, and the course we were required to do demanded a lot of energy," she said. "So I sat down and really got him going and took all of the risks and met all of the challenges of the course. Carter turned out to be just what I needed to really make me concentrate and be aggressive and lay down a solid course. I was definitely happy."
Freund also had high praise for the horses at Nationals; only the top horses owned by teams throughout the country are used for the event.
"They were on another level completely from what we normally ride in this region," she said. "They were high quality, responsive, well groomed, healthy performance animals."
Dartmouth's customary sense of team spirit was certainly not missing from the event.
"A lot of obnoxious flair was involved," Brown said. "First of all, at Nationals you see a lot of painfully understated good taste. Everyone is in Polos and pearls. Our captains explained to me that our job was to bring some tackiness to this, otherwise boring event.
"So we arrived in T-shirts I puff painted in the car on the way down with slogans like "Dartmouth, kicking your ass since 1769" and "Watch out for the inTIMidator." We also had multi-colored cowboy hats, green pom-poms, leis and one captain dyed her hair green. We were walking out of Starbucks one morning and a woman turned to her friend and asked if it was St. Patrick's Day."
