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RIDE TO WIN, NOT TO TIE Five of the the nine IHSA Zones shows will take place this Saturday. Once these five shows have been completed, the entire field for IHSA Nationals will be set. Individual classes of between three and twelve riders will take in different locations, with only the top two in each class advancing to IHSA Nationals May 3rd through 6th in Springfield, Massachusetts. Schools which won their respective regions get to compete in the team competition. Save for Zone 5, where only three regions currently exist, the Team Competition is made up of four schools, with the high point team at each Zone show assured of going to IHSA Nationals. We are still trying to confirm if Zone 8 will take more than only the top team (this is based on the number of hunter seat riders in a given Zone, and Zone 8 may be on the bubble for taking one versus two teams to Nationals). At the other four shows it is safe to say that the Reserve High Point Team at Zones will also go on to Nationals. Since Zone 2 has over 1,000 hunter seat riders the third-place team at Zone 2 Zones will also advance to Springfield. However save for Zone 2 the remaining teams which earn third or fourth place are finished until September. There have been many occasions in IHSA history when the second and third place teams have finished in a tie. Through the 2005-06 season, the policy for breaking a tie was simple: The names of all eight hunter seat divisions are written down and placed in a hat. A neutral party (sometimes it was even IHSA Founder and Executive Director Bob Cacchione) then reaches into the hat and pulls out a class. The riders who rode earlier in the day in that selected class then go head-to-head a second time in a ride-off. A horse-draw is created. The riders draw their horses, get on, and the judge or judges make the call. The winner of the ride-off advances their team to Nationals. One of the ties occurred last season at Zone 1 Zones. Wheaton College trailed the University of Vermont for second place with two classes to go. Wheaton managed to tie the Cattamounts by finishing one place ahead in each of the final classes. With both schools in second with 33 points, the randomly selected class turned out to be novice flat. Sarah Muntyan of Vermont, who had placed fourth out of four in the novice flat class earlier, was the winner this time. Sometimes the ride-offs were necessary to separate first and second, with both teams already assured of a trip to Nationals, or third and fourth. The reason to have a third place versus fourth place ride-off is that in case one of the first or second-place teams is found to have violated an IHSA rule (such as an illegal rider) the winner of the ride-off may move up and bring a full team to IHSA Nationals. 2002 Zone 3 Zones contained not one but two ride-offs. The University of Delaware and Wilson College tied for high point team (this is the only time since 1993 that Wilson - and not Penn State - represented their region at Zones). The University of Delaware won this ride-off, while Bucknell University (then a member of Zone 3, Region 4) and Fairfield University (a member of what was then Zone 3, Region 1 but is now Zone 2, Region 4) were tied below Wilson and Delaware. Bucknell won this particular ride-off for third. On this occasion, the random classes were sealed in envelopes and selected later in the day, another way to determine the division. There have been many other noteworthy tiebreakers: USMA over Cazenovia at Zone 2 Western Zones last season, Mount Holyoke over UConn at 1998 Zone 1 Zones and the legendary 2002 Zone 1 Zones where all four teams were at some point in first and last place, and the final score was Stonehill 39, Brown 38, University of Vermont 38 and Mount Holyoke 37. Brown, which needed a very strange combination of events in the final two classes just to avoid the basement, got their miracle and then won the ride-off over the jumps. That was the way they did it until this season. Starting in 2007 the possiblity of a ride-off is remote at best. A series of tiebreakers are now in place, with the first tiebreaker being number of blue ribbons won. The second tiebreaker is the number of red ribbons won. The third tiebreaker has nothing to do with yellow ribbons. It is instead the number of points over fences. If there is still a tie at this point, then you have a ride-off like in the good-old days. Had the new tiebreaker formula been in effect last season the University of Vermont would have defeated Wheaton without the ride-off. Mount Holyoke won seven of the eight team classes, scoring 54 of a possible 56 points (the lowest score is not dropped at a Zones or Nationals show - Editor). Ali Joyce of the University of Vermont won the intermediate fences to provide the Cattamounts with the only non-Mount Holyoke blue ribbon of the team competition. Schools competing at the various sites might want to keep the tiebreaker formula handy as the chance to tie someone in the last class may not be enough anymore. Several of the Zones shows offer the usual early-April IHSA drama. Mount Holyoke is in their own building, facing three completely different teams than one year ago. It would be a huge surprise if the Lyons do not win outright. The race for second should be one of the highlights of the weekend. Half the field at Zone 2 Zones is different than one year ago, as Cazenovia edged out Saint Lawrence in Region 2 while Fairfield won their first region title since 2003. First-year Fairfield Head Coach Kelly Anne Taylor won the Cacchione Cup the last time Nationals were in Western Massachusetts. Taylor did this in 1997 while a sophomore at Centenary College, one of the three teams she will try to beat. Skidmore College is the fourth entry. The last two times Zone 2 Zones were hosted by Region 2 were forgetable days for Skidmore, with the Thoroughbreds able to make Nationals every year this decade except those two. Good news for Skidmore is that those shows were held at Cazenovia while this weekend's gathering is at the Elsa Gunnison Appleton Riding Hall, known simply as Saint Lawrence's facility to the masses. And Zone 3 Zones features two teams making a return after a few years out of the big dance. The University of Delaware won the Zone 3, Region 2 regular season tiebreaker with Delaware Valley College while Kutztown University pulled away from their Region 4 competition late in the fall. Kutztown was last a Region 4 champ in 2004 while UDel took a full team to Zones every season save for 1998 between '95 and '03. Both Penn State and West Virginia Universities managed to repeat, with the Nittany Lions running away with Region 1 from the get-go while the Mountaineers fell behind Pittsburgh in Region 3 before two very good shows this spring gave them momentum headed into Zones this weekend. We at Campus Equestrian are hoping to provide Live Class-By-Class Results from all five Zones show this weekend. These results can be found by clicking on the various icons along the right-hand side of our home page (these icons will say "Coming Soon" until Saturday morning after 8AM Eastern Time, when they should become active and say "Full Story"). With as many Zones shows this weekend as there are, one or two will likely feature team competitions which are very one-sided while the others will range from interesting to classic. ---Steve Maxwell
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Zone 1
ZONE 1 ZONES Hosted by Mount Holyoke College on campus at the Mount Holyoke
Equestrian Center, South Hadley, MA 9:00AM ENGLISH ONLY