|
||||||
|
THE INDIVIDUAL AQHA HIGH POINT RIDER DIVISION QUALIFIERS For the second year in a row IHSA Nationals will be held at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The IHSA National show is usually held the first weekend in May and this is the case in 2014. The show will start on May 1st but for nearly everyone who is entered to show Western the competition really begins on Friday, May 2nd. The first day of Nationals is an all-hunter seat affair, but after day one is over, better than 50 percent of what remains is for those who walk, jog and in many cases, lope. And for those who have shown throughout the season in both open divisions, and who managed to earn the most combined reining and rail points in their region, this means they will advance directly to Nationals to compete for the indivdiual AQHA High Point Open Rider award. Through March 9th the entire field for the individual AQHA at Nationals had been set, save for perhaps one. Campus Equestrian has been unable to determine if the western show season has come to an end in Zone 6, Region 4. The final doubleheader scheduled for January 25th was cancelled due to snow. A make-up date was to be announced but no one has informed us of a date. Therefore it is not clear to us if the shows were made up or if the season officially ended on January 12th with the January 25th shows not being made up or if the make-up shows are this coming weekend. In any event if you are part of this region made up of Michigan schools plus the University of Western Ontario we would be grateful to hear from you. Since the field is nearly complete a few statistics jump out at us. Eight riders are returnees from the 2013 individual AQHA competition. Two of them also competed in the division at 2012 Nationals in Raleigh while Ohio State University senior Austin Griffith is that rare breed who qualified as the top rider in his region each of his four school years. Griffith is not only the defending champion, he has won it each of the past two seasons. If Griffith does it again he will tie 2002 Texas A & M University graduate Quincy Cahill as the only western rider ever to win the individual AQHA High Point Rider Award at three IHSA National shows. If you follow the Academy Awards then you may know that when a film has won the 'Best Picture' award since 1957 only nine times has the film's director not won 'Best Director' the same year. This year 22 of the confirmed Western Region Champion Teams can claim one of their open riders is going to Nationals to compete for the individual AQHA award. The only exceptions to this are Leah DiGioia of the State University of New York at Cobleskill (Morrisville State College is Zone 2, Region 3 high point team), Ginger Ullrich of Slippery Rock University (West Virginia University is Zone 6, Region 5 champ) and Sunni Hecht of Rocky Mountain College, who has qualified in the individual AQHA each of the past two seasons even though Utah State University has prevailed in Zone 8, Region 3 each time. Perhaps the moral here is that more often than not you need a superior open rider to win your region. Most trivial piece of trivia you will hear all week: None of the 25 riders listed below finished in a tie for high point rider at the end of the regular season and therefore would have needed to ride off at Regionals to determine who advanced to Nationals. Usually there are one or two cases each year where there is a tie after six to ten shows (strangely enough the region we are still waiting to hear from, Zone 6, Region 4, could claim at tie for first through January 12). The closest race we know of was in Zone 8, Region 5 where Katrina Quick of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln edged out teammate Dustin Renkin by a 91-89 margin. Quick was sixth in the division at 2013 Nationals, Rebekah Strunk of Clemson fifth and Griffith first. These are the only three to make the top ten last season that have a chance to do so again this May. I think these are enough statistics for this time around. But once we find out who is representing Region 4 who knows what we will have to say about the individual AQHA! (Editor's Note: We were informed by an alumni rider in another region that Albion College is the Zone 6, Region 4 Western High Point Team and that Morgan Carey of Albion College is the high point rider. Thus the field for the individual AQHA is complete.) --Steve Maxwell The known 2014 IHSA Nationals Individual AQHA Qualifiers, each of whom will compete for the Individual AQHA High Point Rider award May 1st through 4th in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. An asterisk * denotes a rider who competed in the same division at 2013 Nationals: ZONE 1, REGION 3: Emily Murch, Mount Holyoke College ZONE 2, REGION 1: Lexi Buckheit, Alfred University ZONE 2, REGION 2: Samantha Kirby, Oswego State University ZONE 2, REGION 3: Leah DiGioia, State University of New York at Cobleskill ZONE 3, REGION 2: Kendra Clarke, Delaware Valley College ZONE 3, REGION 3: Shelby Cashman, Centenary College ZONE 3, REGION 5: Nicole Smith, University of Delaware ZONE 4, REGION 3: Michelle Hustad, St. Andrews University ZONE 5, REGION 1: Cayce Turner, Middle Tennessee State University ZONE 5, REGION 2: Andrea Smith, Berry College* ZONE 5, REGION 3: Rebekah Strunk, Clemson University* ZONE 5, REGION 5: Morgan Sykes, University of Central Florida ZONE 6, REGION 1: Josh Clevenger, University of Findlay ZONE 6, REGION 2: Austin Griffith, Ohio State University* ZONE 6, REGION 3: Allison Board, University of Kentucky* ZONE 6, REGION 4: Morgan Carey, Albion College ZONE 6, REGION 5: Ginger Ullrich, Slippery Rock University ZONE 7, REGION 1: Ali Mahloch, St. Mary of the Woods College ZONE 7, REGION 2: Julia Roberts, West Texas A & M University ZONE 7, REGION 3: Alie Leonhart, University of Wisconsin at River Falls* ZONE 7, REGION 5: Alex Miller, Black Hawk College ZONE 8, REGION 1: Carson Kautz, Stanford University ZONE 8, REGION 2: McKenna Coveney, Cal Poly - Pomona ZONE 8, REGION 3: Sunni Hecht, Rocky Mountain College* ZONE 8, REGION 4: Emily Honey, Oregon State University* ZONE 8, REGION 5: Katrina Quick, University of Nebraska at Lincoln*
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
HOME
| CONTACT US |
||||||
