On Sunday, the Dartmouth equestrian team continued its winning streak, riding to a first-place tie at the Mount Ida College home show in Newton, Mass. The team finished the event even with host Mount Ida, the defending regional champion.
Nine Dartmouth riders finished either first or second in their events as the Big Green cantered toward victory.
Several riders were also able to qualify for the Spring Regional Championships in individual events.
"It was a really good day," Kari Lewis '10, a novice rider who won her event, said. "We had a lot of first-place ribbons."
Kelley Crisp '12 led the charge for the team, earning first-place honors in both the Open Jumping and Open Flats events.
Captain Samantha Parsons '10 also won her Open Flats competition.
In the intermediate division, Cristina Herren '12 placed first in Intermediate Jumping, while veteran Erica Anhalt '09 beat out the competition in Intermediate Flats.
On the beginner side, Lucretia Witte '10, Susanna Kurnick '11 and Lewis each did well enough to earn first-place ribbons in their respective classes in the Walk Trot Canter event.
IHSA events -- in addition to holding different events that test riders' ability to make the horse perform different skills -- place riders into categories based on their experience in IHSA competition.
The Open, Intermediate and Novice levels, as well as the Walk Trot Canter and Walk Trot levels that are unique to the Flats competitions, reflect the amount of points that a rider has earned.
Riders are able to level up after they reach a particular point plateau.
The system judges a rider's experience based on how many events she has won, as well as how many lessons she has taken.
Anhalt and Linda Cummins '10 were both promoted to a new level of competition just last week, and yet both were able to win their first events competing at the new difficulty.
The win was particularly impressive due to IHSA regulations that force all riders to use the home team's horses at any given event.
This rule puts all away teams on a level playing field, but gives the home team a large and important advantage going into the competition.
Lewis commented that the difficulties were only heightened by the fact that no interaction with the horse before the event is allowed.
"It's tough because we don't get to warm up at all on the horse," Lewis said. "They do a horse draw, where they pull a name out of a hat, and that's who you ride without ever having seen that horse before."
"The idea of it is to put the emphasis on the rider's ability to execute on whatever horse they are given," Witte said. "But it's mostly luck of the draw -- a bad horse can mean a bad show ... but it does make [the competition] much more about the rider as an individual, rather than how expensive the horse is."
Despite the disadvantage, the Big Green was able to match Mount Ida stride for stride, forcing the aptly named Mustangs to share their home-show title. The win marks an upswing in momentum for the team.
"We got off to a slow start, but I feel like our team is really coming into its own," Lewis said. "I personally had no experience doing this, so it took me a little time, but I feel like I've gotten more comfortable. Everyone on the team is kind of doing the same."
"The points are really close in the region right now, but we've had steadily better showings as the season has gone on," Witte said. "We only have one more show in the fall, but it's really nice to be guaranteed that a lot of people are going to Regionals already."
The IHSA creates regional levels for intercollegiate competition: regions are smallest, then zones and finally national competition.
The Big Green had one rider advance to the national competition last year and hopes to repeat the performance this season.
"To get to Nationals, you have to win three levels of competition, so it's hard," Witte said. "But it would be really cool to see someone go that far again this year."
The team will travel to the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H. for its last show of the season on Sunday, Nov. 2.
