Spring Break
The Daily OrangeSyracuse Horsing Around: University Equestrian Team rides into competition
By Christine Bald
Posted: 3/30/06, 12:10 AM EST Section: Pulp
It's just above 25 degrees on a Friday morning at Hoyt Training Stables, and the breath of both the Western Syracuse equestrian team riders and the horses they're saddling is visible. Despite chilly weather, trainer Jen Hoyt, owner of Hoyt Training Stables and the coach of the Syracuse University Western team, barks at Amy Marcello, a senior in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, to remove her jacket so she can judge her equitation, or position.
Marcello and the rest of the Western SUET riders have been training all year for the regional show, which took place Wednesday night, in which both co-captain Ilana Dubrovsky, a junior policy studies major, and Jackie Anderson, a senior fisheries major, accumulated enough points to secure a spot in the larger zone competition on April 9. The Syracuse Zone riders will ultimately be competing for a chance to show at the national show in late April, an event that will include the best riders from colleges across the country.
The Syracuse team has been competing since fall in a series of local shows against Cazenovia College, Oswego State University of New York and the Rochester Institute of Technology to win championships for the team and to advance as individuals.
The team is consistently reserve champion at shows, said Hoyt, but, Dubrovsky said, "We beat Cazenovia last Sunday and ended up champion. They usually beat us, but we're getting better, and I think it was kind of a wake-up call for them."
College equestrian teams consist of four levels of riders - beginner, intermediate, novice and advanced - to ensure riders compete against individuals of equal skill and experience. Placing in the top six, or pinning, in a class at a show earns riders individual points, which they accumulate throughout the year in order to advance to a higher level and qualify for the regional, zone and national horse shows.
Syracuse riders train and compete fall through spring in order to gain heightened ease in the saddle and the ability to invisibly execute the skills they learn in practice -everything from leg pressure to hand placement to seat posture. Horsemanship, the most popular class among western SUET members, "tests a rider's ability to manipulate their horse while maintaining excellent equitation," Hoyt said. Riders that walk away with championships are those that best demonstrate this ability - and make it completely invisible to the human eye.
Marcello and the rest of the Western SUET riders have been training all year for the regional show, which took place Wednesday night, in which both co-captain Ilana Dubrovsky, a junior policy studies major, and Jackie Anderson, a senior fisheries major, accumulated enough points to secure a spot in the larger zone competition on April 9. The Syracuse Zone riders will ultimately be competing for a chance to show at the national show in late April, an event that will include the best riders from colleges across the country.
The Syracuse team has been competing since fall in a series of local shows against Cazenovia College, Oswego State University of New York and the Rochester Institute of Technology to win championships for the team and to advance as individuals.
The team is consistently reserve champion at shows, said Hoyt, but, Dubrovsky said, "We beat Cazenovia last Sunday and ended up champion. They usually beat us, but we're getting better, and I think it was kind of a wake-up call for them."
College equestrian teams consist of four levels of riders - beginner, intermediate, novice and advanced - to ensure riders compete against individuals of equal skill and experience. Placing in the top six, or pinning, in a class at a show earns riders individual points, which they accumulate throughout the year in order to advance to a higher level and qualify for the regional, zone and national horse shows.
Syracuse riders train and compete fall through spring in order to gain heightened ease in the saddle and the ability to invisibly execute the skills they learn in practice -everything from leg pressure to hand placement to seat posture. Horsemanship, the most popular class among western SUET members, "tests a rider's ability to manipulate their horse while maintaining excellent equitation," Hoyt said. Riders that walk away with championships are those that best demonstrate this ability - and make it completely invisible to the human eye.
