Saturday and Sunday brought our grand finale for our time here in Canada. Saturday began with the Owner’s Round, where we got to watch our team’s horses go with their regular riders. They were all generously donated by The Bright Water Pony Club, Dana Balfour, and all of her wonderful riders from Twisted Pine Farm. We met them at Bronte Creek Equestrian on a very hot and humid day, and we got to stand by and watch our horses go to be sure we placed the right riders on them and to have a sneak peek of how they jumped. We were very impressed with the owners, especially a few young girls who rode up to four horses in one day! After their round and their awards, it was time for us to finally get on our team horses. Our group started with me (Nicole) on Fenwick, a prelim horse, Ema on Sammy, an adorable and green (we’re sensing a theme here with Ema riding the baby horses) palomino, Jenn on a bay named Ralph, and KC on Stetson. Partway through our one hour trial, though, we realized Fenwick was not feeling quite himself and was stopping at some of the fences. So, we decided the best plan for Nations Cup was to put Ema on PC and me on Sammy. With this plan, we hoped for the best for the next morning!
Sunday brought a slight breeze, thank goodness, and the start of our Nations Cup. We arrived at Bronte Creek at 9am and took some group photos with our trusty bus and bus driver before unpacking all of our gear. We used that time to do our first course walk- it looked really beautiful! The amazing volunteers set a really nice course in the grass arena, with two combinations and some tricky turns, but we all felt it should ride nicely for our horses. Once all the mounts arrived we met with the grooms and owners, made sure to put our team saddle pads with the right gear, and set to work on braiding. We prepped the horses by making them sparkling clean and plaited (plATTed, if you’re from the Southern Hemisphere), and then we had a parade of teams in front of our spectators. As we carried our flags with our coaches and managers, the national anthems played over the loudspeaker. This created a really powerful and humbling experience, and we all felt incredibly lucky to be here for this journey and to have the opportunity to compete for our country.
The first round of competition was definitely challenging and nerve-wracking for us, and the USA team had a few stops and rails, which didn’t start us off with a great score. The other teams as well had their own challenges and triumphs, and only one rider had a clear first round! We all got the chance to shake the nerves off, think more about how exactly to ride the turns on our specific horses, and get a second try over the same course in the afternoon. Jenn started us off with a beautiful clear round with tons of improvement from her first ride, and KC followed suit! Ema’s mount unfortunately was feeling a bit tired and not up for making the strides in the combinations, but she gave it the best ride she could. I was really proud of my green horse who felt much more confident through our second round and we were clear and fast!
Luckily, our improvements helped Team USA to move far up the leaderboard… except there was a bit of confusion about the scoring. Typically, the Nations Cup uses FEI scoring systems, but we’re all eventers, so I think we used eventing showjumping format. But, then there were questions of “Is a second over time worth .25, .4, or 1?”, “how many refusals can a rider have before elimination?”, and “if, during a refusal, the horse knocks the jump down, should they be awarded 6 faults for rebuilding and restarting the time?”. Our hardworking Technical Delegate, jump judge, organizer, and team managers all spent a ton of time poring over the score sheets and tallying and retallying points to be sure that things were fair. A huge thank you and shoutout to the New Zealand coach, Emma, who noticed a few inconsistencies and pointed them out, which ended up giving USA the advantage over her own country by only a single point!
Displays of sportsmanship like the New Zealand team showed us is exactly what this exchange is all about. Throughout our time in Pony Club, we’ve all heard those magic words “sportsmanship, leadership, and stewardship through horsemanship” and I now have a much more thorough understanding and appreciation for them. It was at once amazing and not surprising at all to learn of our team placings, take a miniscule moment to reflect on our successes and challenges, and then immediately find our competitors friends and have a huge group hug and totally forget about the ribbons. The most fun part was that we had multitudes of chances during ribbon ceremony to yell “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” and have them excitedly yell “Oi, oi, oi!” in response.
Our experience with the Inter-Pacific Exchange was truly life-altering. We are so lucky to have had the chance to meet so many new friends, have incredible experiences, see new things, have the opportunity for personal growth, and ride awesome horses. A huge thank you goes out to those who supported us in this adventure- from our families, our sponsors for equipment, donators, Wayne, Shelley, and Marian from the National Office, Jacqui the organizer, our wonderful coach Janna, our fearless momager/chaperone/chef d’equipe Allyson, and all of our new friends from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. We hope that this blog has entertained you and that we can encourage other members in our incredible USPC organization to be inspired to attain their upper level ratings with goals of attending the IPE in the future. Please contact any of us with questions, concerns, and more information about the IPE in the future. THANK YOU again- Cheers, and kick on!
Love, Nicole, Ema, Jenn, KC, Allyson, and Janna
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