Forrestel Horses at IHSA
Thursday, November 09, 2006
This week's blog has been written by Anne, our Riding Director.
On Sunday (10/29) I had the great opportunity to visit some of our Forrestel horses at a show run by the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA). Before I tell you about our horses let me tell you some about the IHSA. The IHSA is an organization that allows college students to compete in Equitation classes on levels from walk, trot up to those over fences between 2'9" and 3'3" in height. The most unique part of this organization is that riders do not compete on their own horses. The school who is hosting the show provides all the horses and tack. A horse is assigned randomly to every rider for each class. Furthermore before the class begins riders are only allowed to WALK around on the horses. This format is designed so that all riders are judged on their own equitation and horsemanship skills rather than the horse they are riding. I was lucky enough to have competed with the SUNY Geneseo Equestrian team for four years and I highly recommend the IHSA experience to any of our horse loving campers.
Moving on to the horse update…many of our Forrestel horses are being used by college teams and at this particular show I was able to see Lopez, Scruffy and Rook all competing. Both Lopez and Rook were being used for all the levels- including the 2'9"-3'3" classes. Due to Scruffy's knee injury a little while back he is sticking to slightly lower jumps but still competing over 2'3" - 2'9" fences. The day before Ace was also used in the competition. All of our horses performed beautifully and were greatly appreciated by the riders.
The following horses are being used by Intercollegiate teams this winter:
Lopez and Scruffy at SUNY Geneseo
Ace, Rook and Gracie at University of Rochester
Mister and Jack at Skidmore University
Tango, Fifi and Blondie at Earlham College
Please check back early next week for pictures of Scruffy, Lopez and Rook competing at this weekend's show. Do any of you have favorite horse show moments that you would like to share? How about favorite moments with our camp horses?