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Equestrian team sends one to Nationals

by Laren Rusin

While most Oberlin students are going to be cramming for finals in the beginning of May, junior Shuna Klaveness is going to be at Mount Holyoke for the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association Nationals.

Klaveness is the second person in the history of Oberlin's equestrian team to qualify for nationals. She qualified at the Zone finals at Findlay (OH), where she won her division, equitation over fences.

She's "very excited" for her first Nationals. She will go up to Massachusettes with the team's assistant trainer for the competition, which runs from May 2 - 4.

Klaveness has ridden for most of her life in Sacramento, Calif., where she kept her own horses, and focused primarily on eventing, so the equitation classes are a new challenge.

In the equitation classes, riders are judged on their own form and style, whereas the horse is judged in most other classes.

"It's so different," Klaveness said of the division she competes in. "I like that [in equitation classes] it judges the rider and not how much your horse costs."

There's a practical reason for fine-tuning one's form. "It's good for people to develop their positions, because there's a reason those positions exist," Klaveness said.

Klaveness used to have her own horse in Ohio and boarded it where the equestrian team takes lessons, at Muddy Branch Farms, but she sold it in December. She takes lessons at least three times a month with the rest of the equestrian team, and rides other times as well.

"The equestrian team here is good," Klaveness said. The College pays for the cost of competitions, so it's far more affordable than owning a horse.

One of the things Klaveness finds exciting about intercollegiate competition is the fact that riders compete on strange horses. Riders draw horses from a lottery and get a few minutes before their round to get to know the animal. While it's not as comfortable for Klaveness to ride strange horses, she thinks it's a good skill to have, and makes a rider versatile.

"You can't be nervous," Klaveness said. "That's the main thing."


Oberlin

Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 22, April 25, 1997

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