SAU equestrian to host intercollegiate horse show on Saturday
Sep. 21—LAURINBURG — On Saturday, riding teams from 10 North Carolina colleges and universities will compete in a hunter jumper horse show sponsored by the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association (IHSA) in the covered arena at the St. Andrews Equestrian Center's lesson barn.
The show will begin at 10 a.m. and end at around 4 p.m.
"It's a free event," said Brian Stanley, Vice President of Enrollment Management at St. Andrews. "I think it's more about just educating the community about equestrian. They're actually riding our horses that St. Andrews owns and will be jumping over fences."
Colleges and universities competing in the show include Campbell, Davidson, Duke, East Carolina, Elon, North Carolina State, St. Andrews, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, and UNC-Wilmington.
The schools will practice for the event in the covered arena Friday at 3 p.m.
"There's no official judge or riding taking place," Stanley said. "It's more for practice and warm up and stuff like that. The competition is really on Saturday."
In the IHSA, the host school supplies all the horses for the show. Riders draw the name of the horse they will ride, then mount up in the holding area. They can stand and wait for their time to enter the ring. Or they can be led around by the horse holder.
Once it is time for that rider to compete, the horse holder leads them to the entrance gate, and the horse and rider enter the arena and begin their performance; some classes are on the flat, and some are over fences.
There's no warm-up like they'd have at a regular horse show. The rider has to figure out the horse quickly and work in harmony with the animal to get the best possible performance from the horse. All riders are judged by the same person who is a United States Equestrian Federation-recognized judge. The test of the riders is how quickly they adapt to the horse they are riding.
All riders accumulate individual points. And some get points for their team with their placing from each ride. The school with the most points from their designated "point" riders wins the competition. Riders may advance in levels for their team and individually as they collect points for their placings in the classes.
The next equestrian competition at St. Andrews will be on Sept. 29 and 30, when the IHSA Western Shows occur.
