Sweet Briar’s Intercollegiate Horse Show Association team made the most of its historic first trip to the IHSA National Championship the weekend of May 4-7 in Harrisburg, Pa. The team earned 18 points for third place in the overall Hunter Seat Team standings, just five points behind this year’s national champions from Mount Holyoke College.
Senior Jodie Weber's final ride at the IHSA National Championship in Harrisburg, Pa., was the difference in Sweet Briar's third-place finish in the College's first team appearance in the national finals.Penn State and Stanford University tied for second place. A total of 18 teams qualified through nine IHSA zone finals to vie for the 35th IHSA Collegiate Cup in the national finals.
“We did awesome” said Angela MacFawn, who coached the team in the competition.
Senior Jodie Weber capped off an achievement-filled riding career at Sweet Briar with several individual successes in the national finals, including a fourth-place finish in the Cacchione Cup. Riders with the highest point totals accumulated over the season from each of the IHSA’s 30 regions compete for the cup.
The first round of flat work had Weber in the middle of the pack at 13th. In the jumping test, she put on her game face and scored an 88, moving up to seventh in the standings. Her second score of 88 in the ride-off between the top 10 riders moved her up to fourth place overall.
SBC riding director Shelby French, who has coached Weber through four years, noted that just getting to the competition was an accomplishment. “All three high-point regional winners from our zone ended up in the top ten of the Cacchione Cup, which is a tribute to the quality of the riding programs in Virginia,” she said.
Weber also was second in the Open Hunter Seat in the Flat team class and won the Open Hunter Seat Equitation over Fences team class — a ride that proved the difference in the team’s overall top-three finish.
“We were in fifth place going into the last team class on Saturday. Jodie won the Open over Fences and that kind of catapulted us to third place,” MacFawn, a second-year riding fellow, said.
Weber thought the round was a good one. “While I was riding to my last jump on course, I had a huge smile on my face because I knew I put down a beautiful ride — the judges must have thought so, too,” she said. “However, the judges decided to test the top five riders — I was on top — which I knew could change around the placings. I didn’t let that bother me and gave the test my best shot.
“It was an amazing feeling to put in a winning round and remain on top after the test. The icing on the cake was the third overall for the team competition. The whole team rode well. … I could not have asked to end my intercollegiate riding career any better than this.”
Other individual standouts include sophomore Alison Carr, who took third in the Intermediate Equitation on the Flat team class and junior Lindsey Cline’s fifth-place finish in the Intermediate Equitation over Fences Collegiate Cup class.
Jessica McCarthy ’08, Katie Bird ’09, Laeun Sung ’08 and Ivey Tabor ’06 all rode well and were excited to be on a nationals team in their first year of IHSA competition for Sweet Briar.
“Congratulations to Angela MacFawn and [assistant IHSA coach] Krista Steinmetz for a job well done in organizing our IHSA program and for a truly successful year,” French said.
But MacFawn was quick to credit the team’s performance to the entire riding program staff. “All the girls ride with all of the different instructors” throughout the year, she explained. “We were all thrilled.”
