Equine excellence

Princeton University riders are making some news

By: Phyllis Spiegel
   Their majors run the gamut from psychology to engineering, their home towns from San Diego to Maplewood, but these Princeton University students share a love of horses and riding that gets them up and out of their dorms early every Friday morning to carpool to Cranbury.
   There, every week at Silver Dollar Stables — under the tutelage of their coach, Ashton Phillips, a past Intercollegiate national reserve champion — members of the Princeton Equestrian Team brush up on their riding skills, learn new techniques, groom and feed the horses, and prepare for the Intercollegiate horse shows in which the team has been excelling in recent competitions.
   Katie McGee, 18, grew up in Houston, two minutes from the Houston Polo Club. She was 7 when she started to ride and was at the club three to four times a week.
   "But it was very different," said this freshman Literature and English major. "I played polo, riding Western style, much faster, and outdoors. Here, we ride indoors in the barn and I’m just learning to jump."
   Jo Lanus, a junior and Art History major, had her own horse at home in Louisville and has been riding since early childhood.
   "But at home, I rode Saddle Seat. Now I’m becoming a more versatile rider," she said.
   Kelly McCormick, a sophomore from Rye, N.Y., has been riding in Long Island’s Hamptons since childhood and has competed regularly in the Hampton Classic in Bridgehampton, a major competition. In addition to the workouts at the stables, Ms. McCormick said she still runs or swims every few days.
   Junior and Psychology major Shayla Mulvey rode her first horse at the age of 4. Until she was 10, she said, she rode hunters at home in San Diego and then did dressage. She said she was "rusty" because she didn’t ride during the high school years and now enjoys being part of a team.
   "It’s a nice break to get off campus and do something different," she said.
   According to team manager, Allison Harding, the size of the team practically doubled this year, bringing the total up to 33 members.
   "We have riders from every experience level and from every imaginable background. We have people who have never ridden before to those who showed extremely competitively in the years before coming to Princeton. Some come from backgrounds in dressage, polo, jumpers, Saddle Seat and Western," she said.
   "As a team, we teach and show Hunter Equitation, meaning there is a flat phase where we are judged on our style as a rider without jumping, then a jumping phase where we are again judged on style and technique, but this time, over fences."
   Ms. Harding has been on Cloud 9 since October when she had her horse, Yogi, shipped from St. Louis to Silver Dollar Stables. A junior, majoring in English and American Studies, she said her family sold the horse when she left for college but then bought him back.
   "We are happy to be together," she said. "I missed him. It’s nice to find a piece of home right here with my buddy," she said affectionately, stroking the horse. "Yogi is of Dutch ancestry," she said, "sired by Argus, a famous Grand Prix jumper."
   Lindsay Jacob, 20, a Comparative Literature major, said that horses were a "huge" part of her life growing up in New Hope. She’s had her own horse since she was 14. She rushed out of the stables one recent Friday to get back to campus to give a presentation in Spanish class — still in boots and riding clothes.
   One of the three men on this year’s team is Jon Yehuda, 20, of Roslyn, Long Island.
   A junior majoring in History, Mr. Yehuda said that horses go with history. He rode for a couple of years in his childhood but has been away from it since he was 12. He believes that riding improves concentration, awareness and thinking. And he’s pleased that because of the rating system in shows, beginners have the same chance to score.
   Teasing Jon, stable owner Anne Weber noted that "he knew where to find the pretty girls."
   Two New Jersey members are Laura Valle, a sophomore, 19, who grew up riding in Maplewood, and Lucy Guarnera, 19, also from Essex County, who rode only when visiting an aunt who worked at the Cornell University Equestrian Center. Said Ms. Valle: "It cheers me up to get out here early in the morning."
   Competitions are held five times a semester and involve 12 schools in the region, including Bucknell, Rutgers, Lehigh, Lafayette, Moravian and others.
   In addition to riding, the group does a number of fundraising events, such as working at football, basketball and lacrosse games or selling pizza on campus late at night. A group of the members volunteers at a therapeutic riding center, working with the handicapped.
   Membership in the Equestrian Team is more than a once-a-week activity to these riding devotees. They meet for dinners, parties and even travel as a group. Said Ms Harding, "Last year at spring break we rode together down the west coast of Ireland and even participated in a St. Patrick’s Day parade there."
   Mr. Phillips, coach for the last two years, has brought them from scoring low competitively to placing first in the entire region last year.
   While riding is a club sport at Princeton, many of the competing schools have full blown equestrian programs with their own horses and barns, Ms. Harding explained.
   "Even several of the other Ivy League schools are varsity," she added, "but at the All-Ivy Championship at Cornell last year, we tied Dartmouth, which is a big time varsity team, for second place."
   "These young people are all in great shape," Ms. Weber said. "They need endurance to stay on a horse; they must be strong through the shoulders and maintain a strong core."
   "People don’t know how much effort this is and how much strength it builds," said one team member. "Other students often tease us about how easy it is to just sit on a horse, but they don’t realize how it uses practically every muscle in the body."