MiddEq has started the season with a bang! We had a ton of interest from the student activities fair and a large turnout at our annual fall information session. We are so happy to announce that we are welcoming eight phenomenal freshmen, riding at a range of levels!
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MiddEq has started the season with a bang! We had a ton of interest from the student activities fair and a large turnout at our annual fall information session. We are so happy to announce that we are welcoming eight phenomenal freshmen, riding at a range of levels!
With the school year ending, we are excited to send some updates about the team. In the postseason, captains Anika Jessup ’23 and Sage Mauri ’23.5 traveled with Coach Kate to Mount Holyoke College to compete at the Zone 1 Championship. In extremely competitive classes they returned to Middlebury with a fifth and tenth place. We are thrilled to have been able to send riders to regionals and zones this year, and are looking forward to next season! To commemorate the end of the year, we held a team banquet with riders, coaches, and friends from the Eddy Farm for dinner at one of the townhouses on campus- and it was wonderful to have the team all together in one place. To celebrate almost 30 years of Midd Eq we compiled a slideshow of the team and Coach Kate throughout the years. Check it out here!
We are also happy to announce that we are running a MiddGoal campaign from now through December. Middlebury Equestrian has more interest in joining the team than we can currently sustain. In keeping with the original goals and values of the team when it was founded, we work to foster an environment where horse-loving people can come together and ride. For us, this means ensuring that all people can ride regardless of their prior experience or financial access. To help lower barriers to entry, we maintain a large team inventory of gear and also have a scholarship program to subsidize lesson costs for riders who receive financial aid from the college. Please consider donating any amount to help us keep our team accessible and continue to grow! The link can be found here: MiddGoal. Thank you for helping to support the continuation of Middlebury Equestrian in the future. Finally, we'd like to wish congratulations to Anika, one of our amazing captains who graduated this weekend. Anika has helped lead and transform the team over four years and we will miss her immensely- congratulations Anika! We are super excited to announce that we are headed to Zones tomorrow! Two out of our 3 Regionals-qualifying riders placed top two in their class and are advancing on. We had a ton of fun at Regionals and are so proud of all of our riders. Sage Mauri '23.5 won Reserve Champion in Limit Fences and Anika Jessup '23 won Champion in Novice. Maya Henning '25 put in two stunning rides in Limit Flat and Limit Fences and fell just short of qualifying each time with two third places. Maya Henning (int. flat & fences), Anika Jessup (limit flat & fences), Olivia Rooney '25 (open flat & int fences), and Brenae' Ervin '26 (intro flat & poles) also competed in the team cup challenge. Everyone had great rides and the team ultimately placed 5th overall. If anyone wants to cheer on the team, Mount Holyoke is broadcasting Zones! Sage and Anika will compete on Friday, April 7. You can watch the Friday show (Day 1 of Zones) here (https://boxcast.tv/view/equestrian-ihsa-zone-1-championships-p6j9durgnnbr7a2uydtp) and Saturday show (Day 2 of Zones) here (https://boxcast.tv/view/equestrian-ihsa-zone-1-championships-sv3khkxfzwpeeavv1kpz). We’ve been busy lately! February began with the student activities fair, where we brought Trooper to campus to help us advertise and get people interested in signing up. Parked outside of McCullough, he was definitely a hit!
Two weekends ago, Middlebury Equestrian competed at a double header show at Whishmaker Stables. The weekend was hosted by UNE/UMaine and Colby-Sawyer College. With a snowstorm bringing a foot of snow across New Hampshire and Vermont, we were all grateful for the college vans having snow tires. It was awesome to have a spring show and see the entire region come together to make it happen. Looking ahead, MiddEq is so thrilled to report that we will have three riders heading to regionals this weekend to compete across four classes. Maya Henning ‘25 and captains Anika Jessup ‘23 and Sage Mauri ‘23.5 pointed up in their divisions this year and will be representing Middlebury at the Zone 1 Region 2 competition back at Whishmaker Stables. We are also sending a small team of riders to compete in the team challenge, a fun, low-stakes high-point competition. On the note of team points, we are so excited that Middlebury won fourth in our region this year! We were only outplaced by much larger universities, and were able to do so without filling two out of the eight divisions. We are so thrilled about this outcome and that we have had such a wonderful and fun season, aided by our growing team. Looking forward, we cannot wait for more team events, competitions, and the growth of Middlebury Equestrian. Happy 2023! Over here in Middlebury, we’ve been busy competing, practicing, and running events on campus. Last fall, the team totaled 216 points across all four shows with 10 blue and 11 red ribbons. This means that 42% of our rides were first or second places! We are so excited about the continued growth of this team, aided by a constantly increasing team roster. We have also had a busy winter. During J-term the team held Intro to Horsemanship workshops for students. Over the four weeks, students learned on-the ground skills such as grooming, tacking-up, body part identification, and leading. With the help of Lucas, Scout, and Tilly everyone had a great time coming out to the barn! Possibly everyone’s highlight from J-term was team skijoring. Armed with skis, sleds, and snowboards we headed over to a back field at the Eddy Farm to take turns riding and being pulled through the snow by Rock, who may have found his calling as a skijoring horse. Practices and lessons have resumed, and we are gearing up for a fun Spring with multiple riders heading to regionals and pointing up into their next divisions. Next month, the team will be heading over to Rollinsford, New Hampshire for a double header hosted by University of New England and University of Maine on Saturday, and hosted by Colby-Sawyer on Sunday. Thank you all so much for your continued support of the Middlebury Equestrian Team, and here is to a great spring season! Meet some of our riders and hear why they are excited for our upcoming season! Check out what we've spent the first 4 weeks of our year doing! We've already had so much fun and can't wait to see where the rest of the year takes us. Our annual fundraiser, Proud to Be a Panther is still running from now until Thursday, October 20! We are so grateful to everyone who has already donated! Your donation now will have double the impact. Not only will your donation go to helping to grow the team and keep it as accessible and inclusive as possible, but Middlebury admin also use the number of donors as a way to determine our future funding. With Proud to Be a Panther, we can show the college that people care about the team and its future. As we apply for more SGA funding, get Kate officially hired as a college employee, and try to transition to varsity team status, your donation, regardless of the amount, will show Midd how much everyone cares about the team!
We would love your support for the team however you are comfortable or able. Whether donating directly, sharing the donation link, or reposting on social media, any contribution is immensely helpful. All donations are tax-deductible and Middlebury accepts company matches Thank you so much for your support! This past Saturday, we hosted a super successful home show at the Eddy Farm! Despite the sudden onslaught of rain the day before, the fields dried out and we were able to host the show outside. We introduced our new riders to the world of IHSA shows and our returning members had great rides to open up the season. We would like to give a big thank you to Coaches Kate and Margaret for making the show happen and Alicia, Nova, Mali, and the Eddy Farm kids for donating their time to help us. Also, a huge shoutout to former captains Hannah Donovan and Anna Paritsky for helping out and Midd Eq parents, Tasha and Jeremy Jessup, for running the concessions stand!
The following day, we traveled to UVM for the second show of the season! Despite the wind, rain, and cold temps, the team did super well. We got several first and second place ribbons and two of our riders were tied for Reserve High Point! We are super excited to continue competing at our next show, hosted by UNH, on October 29. In other news, our annual fundraising campaign, Proud to Be a Panther, is running now until October 20! All money that we raise will go to continuing our scholarship program to help Midd students receiving need-based financial aid from the college to pay for lessons. We believe that at Middlebury, we have a unique opportunity to eliminate barriers to riding and help reduce the exclusivity often associated with the sport. The scholarship program and our host of other initiatives aimed at increasing the accessibility of the team allow us to grow our team and give people, who would otherwise never have the opportunity, a chance to ride. The team has nearly tripled in size over the last three years and we would love to continue this trajectory by growing the team, becoming more competitive, and carrying on Midd Eq's 27-year legacy. We would love your support for the team however you are comfortable or able. Whether donating directly, sharing the donation link, or reposting on social media, any contribution is immensely helpful. All donations are tax-deductible and Middlebury accepts company matches. Thank you so much for your support! |
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