Tuesday, March 8, 2011

JEL Championships


On Sunday February 27th, 2011 our school held the Junior Equestrian League (JEL) Finale.  All of the teams from the league competed, including Full Moon Farm, Hunting Ground Farm, Talbot Run, Camp Olympia, and Reddemeade. There was a lot of tough competition. At a usual JEL show, you would be assigned a horse that you might not have ridden before, but at this show you were allowed to pick your "mount" because it was the finale. We all woke up early and made sure everything was ready for the show to start. The horses were schooled and cleaned. Schooled means they are ridden to warm them up and make sure they are sound. Everything was set up and ready to go!

The show started at 9:30 a.m. with Division 5 up first. Since there were so many teams competing, the divisions were split up into group A and group B. There was typically one other person from your team and around five to eight riders. After Division 5 was finished, Div. 4, then Div. 3, then Div 2, then finally Div 1 followed. The show took most of the day ending around 4:45p.m. Everyone rode great and we are all eager to find out who will receive first place for Class Wins, Overall Point Winner, and Team Winner. In the Class Wins, the rider with the most points in the Division will be champion and the rider with the second most points will be reserved champion. It is the same idea with the Overall Point Winner, but it is out of all of the Divisions. The Team Winners are the teams who won the most meet/shows in the season. The ribbons will be given out at the banquet on Saturday March 5th. It was a great season and everyone did a fantastic job!

-- Text and photos by Sadie G.