The equestrian team hosted and won the opening riding show of the spring season on Saturday, demonstrating its ability to balance two huge responsibilities: competing and running a show.
"The team performed really well under a lot of pressure," senior co-captain Sarah Summers said. "With eight new members we had the additional challenge of coming together in order to put on a successful show. Then to top that off, we won it."
The victory was instrumental in Tufts' attempt to pass Stonehill College in the seedings. Stonehill is currently the leader in Zone One, Region Four of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association, but the Jumbos gained five points on them with this weekend's victory. The team is now trailing by only four points with three shows to go in the season. The strong performance also served to distance them from third-ranked Boston University.
"We are on Stonehill's heels," Summers said. "We had a disappointing year last year, but this year we have a stronger riding core and we are poised to take the Region from them."
In addition to a great team showing, there were also strong individual performances as four Tufts riders finished first in their division. Senior, co-captain Hally Phillips won both of her races, the open fences and the open flat. She also earned the reserved high-point rider for the show. In addition, Ralph Basset won intermediate fences and two freshmen, Jessica Angerson and Valerie Wood, won the walk-trot and the advanced walk-trot-canter respectively.
"It has been really fun working with a motivational coach such as Charlotte McEnroe and a good team" Wood said of her first competition at Tufts. "The competition is fun between Stonehill and ourselves since the riders from both schools are so good."
In the next few weeks the race for first in the region will intensify. Though individual riders are looking to gain the necessary points to make the Regionals show, only the top team from each of the four regions can compete in the Zones Show. Tufts' Region has ten teams from the New England area, but Stonehill is its only real competition for first place. From Zones, the top two teams go on to compete at Nationals.
In looking down the road toward future showdowns with Stonehill College, Phillips realizes the importance of continued contributions from younger team members.
"We have a lot of freshman and new riders this semester," Phillips said. "But their previous experiences and enthusiasm has pushed the older members to perform even better. Their addition will help us down the stretch to beat Stonehill and get into the Zones competition."
The team competed in four shows between October, when the season began, and winter break. During the first two shows, Tufts and Boston University traded places atop the division, but in the last two meets of the season, Stonehill made a surge, passing both schools. Impressively, Stonehill finished the fall season with a perfect score at the show at Endicott College. During this time BU slid down and Tufts maintained pace with Stonehill.
Now, with Stonehill leading by only four points, the Jumbos will look to come back from spring break and take back the Region lead. They will have their final three shows over the three consecutive weeks following break.
Tufts no longer has to worry about hosting a show, which can be a distraction when trying to concentrate on the actual competition. The Jumbos look to take advantage of other teams hosting the events in order to pass Stonehill College. Stonehill will not have the luxury of focusing solely on the competition as it hosts two of the three remaining shows.
