Kristen Williams (on left) and Paige Brady of Cazenovia College talk about the Wildcats' early-season success in the first-ever video segment posted on the campusequestrian.com Facebook page.

CAMPUS EQUESTRIAN POSTS VIDEO ON FACEBOOK

It only took eight years, but Campus Equestrian finally recorded video at an IHSA show.

We interviewed several IHSA riders at the December 5, 2009 Holiday Tournament of Champions in Long Valley, New Jersey. And two days later we tried to upload one of the interviews to our Facebook page (Our official name on the Facebook site is "campusequestrian.com" so Facebook users hopefully can type campusequestrian.com in their 'search' box and find us right away). Though it took several hours for the near-three-minute segment with Cazenovia open riders Kristen Williams and Paige Brady to upload we can claim the effort was a success.

Each night for several days (perhaps excluding Friday night, December 11th) Campus Equestrian will attempt to upload a new video overnight. Viewers who visit the sight around midnight will perhaps get the first look at these interviews. Among the segments they will see include Sally Gibb of Mount Holyoke College discussing her ride in novice fences as a member of 'Team Lyons;' Cornell University freshman Emily Kowalchik reflecting on her time competing at both the Tournament and for an IEA-Champion Beckett Run team last season; and a two-part interview with 2009 IHSA Pioneer Award Winners Katie and Jack Benson (a battery issue forced this to become two segments instead of one).

With new ground broken, Campus Equestrian is interested in uploading IHSA video from other sources. If you plan to record something noteworthy at a future IHSA show we would be most interested in hearing about it. Contact us at editor@campusequestrian.com with the details.

Also now that the number of shows will decline for a month we will have time to post some old photos on Facebook that either appeared on Campus Equestrian in season's past or never appeared there. If you have some old IHSA photos which might entertain the masses please let us know.

And we will continue to alert viewers when we update the regular Campus Equestrian site. If we have posted a new story featuring the 2009 Holiday Tournament of Champions we will announce this on our "Wall" (you will have to visit Facebook to understand what that means). If we update the Regional Qualifiers for Zone 1, Region 1 viewers on Facebook will learn of this. Eventually we hope to have video on the regular Campus Equestrian site but until then it is a perk of visiting our Facebook page.

--Steve Maxwell