
April 20, 2005 — Two points separated Sweet Briar College (SBC) from the top spot in the 28th annual Affiliated National Riding Commission (ANRC) National Intercollegiate Riding Championship, April 16-17, at the college’s Rogers Riding Center.
Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) snared the championship title with 173.92 points. SBC finished second with 171.89 points, followed by the University of Virginia (UVA) with 171.83 points. SCAD’s Jordan Siegel won the overall individual competition, followed by UVA’s Whitney Roper in second and SBC’s Erin Gibbs in third.
Eleven teams traveled to SBC for the event, coming from as far away as California’s Cal Poly Pomona and Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.
“I’m ecstatic. My kids couldn’t have ridden any better,” SBC riding director and ANRC coach Shelby French said. “Part of it is horseflesh. Sometimes you get beat by better-quality horses.” Unlike other collegiate riding competitions, the ANRC judges the horse as well as the rider.
The ANRC National Intercollegiate Riding Championship is a U.S. Equestrian Federation-sanctioned event. Two judges independently score each phase of competition–dressage sportif, an outdoor hunter trials course and USEF Medal-type hunter seat equitation course. Teams lose points for riders who score below 70 percent on a written competition.
Kip Rosenthal of Brewster, N.Y., and Rita Timpanaro of Smithtown, N.Y., judged the event.
For more information on ANRC, visit www.anrc.org.