The Dartmouth equestrian team won the Ivy Championship on Saturday, April 21, with a commanding victory in the All-Ivy Championships held at Dartmouth's own Morton Farm.
Saturday's victory was the first time the Big Green has won the Ivy Championship since 1997. To secure the Ivy title for the first time in a decade, Dartmouth bested traditional equestrian powerhouses Brown and Cornell.
"All-Ivies started in 1997 and that is the last time we won them," coach Sally Batton said. "This is the first time since we've brought the cup home to Dartmouth."
Dartmouth finished with 43 team points, just ahead of Brown with 40 points and substantially in front of the third place school, the University of Pennsylvania, with 33 team points.
The Big Green's victory over Brown was both exciting and frustrating for the team. This year, after winning the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association regional championship for the second time in Dartmouth's history, the Big Green failed to qualify to advance to the National Championship. Brown, however, bested Dartmouth at Zone Championship to qualify for Nationals.
"We had a really good season and were hoping it would end with us competing at Nationals," co-captain Daisy Freund '08 said.
"I knew I had a strong enough team to make it to Nationals but we had bad luck in horse draw at Zones," Batton said. "It was satisfying to beat Brown this weekend because it is nice to know that the team is capable of beating a team that is going to Nationals."
After winning Regionals at Mt. Ida College in Massachusetts on April 1, not qualifying for Nationals at the Zone Championship on April 6 was disappointing.
"We went into this weekend wanting a satisfactory end to the year. Winning the Ivy Championship was a great way for the team to end a good season," Freund said.
Freund attributes the Big Green's success to the team's depth.
"There are a lot of different levels of competition and each team is comprised of riders at all of the levels," Freund said.
Dartmouth managed to secure the Ivy title by having top finishers in all the levels of competition.
"A good team has good riders at all of the levels. Yesterday, we had success across the boards," Freund said.
In the highest level of competition, Open, the Big Green was led by Samantha Parsons '10, Tim Malone '07, and Freund. Ashley Hannebrink '07 and Elise Lewyckyj '10 secured points for the team in the Intermediate level, while Jeanie Lau '08, Chesa Bochner '10 and Kaity Wallace '07 also had impressive finishes in their respective levels.
In addition to the stress of competing in the Championship, Dartmouth's equestrian team faced the added pressure of hosting the event. In college equestrian competitions, visiting schools borrow the hosting school's horses. The Big Green had to prepare all the horses and Morton Farm for the Championship.
"We had to both perform and run the championship," Freund said, "It was especially impressive that the team could win while also running the competition."
The hosting team does have the advantage of competing on familiar horses.
"The host school has a slight advantage because the riders know the horses," Freund said.
In collegiate equestrian competitions, since all riders use the hosting team's horses, the horses are randomly assigned to the riders and the rider is unable to practice with the horse first.
"You draw a horse out of a bag. It is literally luck of the draw," Freund said, "You literally get put on the horse and then go straight into the ring and perform."
The Ivy Championship was the Big Green's last competition of the year, but co-captain Tim Malone '07 has advanced to the IHSA National Championship by finishing as the high points rider for the whole region. Malone secured this position by placing second in Open fences at the Zone competition. He will compete for the Cacchione Cup at Nationals on May 3 to 6 in Springfield, Mass.
