Nationals!!

The show that everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived. It's time to travel to Massachusetts and watch the best of the best of the intercollegiate world compete. Unfortunately Del Val did not win our region this year, we lost to University of Delaware after TWO tie breakers, so it was a close season but we will not be bringing riders to Nationals this year. However, that does not mean that we will miss out on the competition because we were asked to bring two of our horses for the competition, Helmert and Delmonte.

Even though we were all disappointed that there were no riders competing from our school we were excited to root on the teams and riders from our region. It was actually kind of nice for my first attendance to nationals to be able to have to time to sit and watch the classes. The amount of fancy, talented horses was absolutely astonishing, one was prettier than the next.


Watching the riders compete is absolutely inspiring. The more you watch these riders go the more you want to go out and try it yourself. The riders are all amazing and make even the hardest Cacchione cup test look easy.

Just being at nationals makes you appreciate the hard work and talent of each and every one of the students that qualified. Bringing home a ribbon from the national IHSA horse show is a huge deal and from the smiles on the rider's faces you could see that they understand what an honor it is to be recognized in the top ten. I just wanted to take the time to congratulate our horse Delmonte on leading one rider to a first place finish and another to a reserve finish! We were all so very proud.

Watching the IHSA nationals was an awesome experience... if you ever get the chance to come out and watch it I would recommend it. The amount of skill it takes to catch ride the way these students do is unbelievable. It is refreshing to see so many excellent horses and riders all at one show. Next year nationals will be held in California so hopefully Del Val will be sending competitors because California sounds like fun. :-)