Equestrian halfway through the season

With two shows behind them and two to go, the Tufts Equestrian Team is now in the middle of its season. Competing in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association in zone one, region four, they took home a fifth place on Oct, 11th at the Boston University show, the first show of the fall season, and a third place finish on the Oct. 25th at the Stonehill College show.

Contributing to the third place finish was sophomore Katie Stewart, an integral member of the team last year. At Stonehill, Stewart took home first place ribbons in both her flats and fences, making her the rider to earn the most points in the show.

"Katie has definitely been performing well, especially with winning her flats and fences," freshman Alex Allweiss said.

In a similar fashion, junior Katie Estes placed first in her Open flats while sophomore captain Jessie Partridge placed first in the Intermediate fences and fifth in the Intermediate Flats.

At the BU show, freshman Katie Dunn ran in the Open Division and turned in a strong performance, taking home a first place in her flat and third place in her fences. Sophomore and first year member Katie Lobel also rode strongly, placing first in her Walk-Trot flat in what junior captain Jessica Angerson called a "standout performance".

Senior Emily Breazeale took home another first place first place, thanks to her stellar finish coming in the Novice flats.

Allweiss, who took home third place in the Intermediate fences and second place in the Intermediate flats.

Although its riding has been exemplary, the team hopes to see an improvement in the way the show is judged.

"We are riding well, but we are not scoring that high right now," Lobel said. "The judges are just not cooperating."

Lobel also noted troubles with the horses the team has been using.

"It's hard because for some of us we have to ride a horse that has been riding six hours straight. We've been getting bad horses that are hard to handle."

Despite this, junior Caitlin Moss believes that the team will only look to improve as the season goes on.

"I feel that our finishes at the last two shows were very respectable and anticipate that we will continue to improve at each show," she said.

The success of the team thus far can also be attributed to the outstanding veteran leadership.

"The upperclassmen are really into [riding]," Lobel said. "They are so dedicated."

Because the Equestrian Team has no "team practices" and only individual or small group lessons, members going out of their way for team building is definitely one of the keys to their success.

"The team runs at night together," Lobel said. "We just have a huge amount of team unity. I mean, we'll get together the night before a show and clean our boots and watch a horse movie."

Moss explained that riding takes years to perfect. "Riders are extremely committed- we endure early mornings, bad weather, yucky clean-up, long hours and hard work," she said.

This upcoming weekend, Tufts is hosting a show on their home turf of Millis, MA at Apple Knoll Farms. They anticipate a strong finish to the year.

"I feel really good about the team this semester. Not only are there a lot of very talented riders, more importantly there are a lot of enthusiastic and committed team members," Moss said.