The Dominion Post
REEDSVILLE — Sam was a little lazy on the lope, but his rail work was good.
The big guy had a sweet disposition, too, which Kayla Knisley also appreciated.
Especially since the diminutive rider needed a footstool to help her hop onto the saddle across Sam’s back.
“I think it went pretty well,” said Knisley, who is on the equestrian team at Ohio State University.
“I was just focusing on him. I didn’t really notice anything else out there. That’s how you have to be when you’re competing in these things.”
This particular thing at Reedsville on Sunday was a semifinal competition for the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (ISHA).
The ISHA was formed in 1967 as a way to give the horseback riding experience to college students who didn’t grow up on farms or have parents who played polo.
Galloping infrastructure
The event was hosted by WVU’s Western Equestrian Team at the J.W. Ruby Research Farm, a 995-acre tract about 20 minutes east of Morgantown, in Reedsville.
A $6.7 million gift from the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust three years ago is helping the university transform its property into a thoroughbred facility, with an indoor riding arena, nearly 50 portable stalls and other amenities.
Crystal Smith, a WVU professor who helped organize the gathering, said the first phase of the renovation should be completed next month.
“The ISHA event was the first since the facelift,” Smith said.
She teaches animal and nutritional sciences in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, which is also home to an equestrian studies minor.
“Well, we are obviously very excited,” she said of the two-day event, which wrapped up Sunday.
“We have schools here from Rhode Island to California.”
Mutual trust
Counting Knisley, there were 90 riders in all, putting horses through a regimen which included the aforementioned lope (not quite a gallop), plus jumping and other precision maneuvers, such as turning, jumping, stopping and even backing up, mid-stride. Knisley’s earlier compliment about Sam’s work on rail meant she was pleased he felt comfortable enough with her at the reins to skirt the barricades of the area, where horses often get spooked.
Perhaps the ultimate equestrian challenge came in the fact that the riders and their horses didn’t know one another — until it was time to enter the arena.
Local breeders and other teams supply the horses for IHSA events. Knisley and Sam, for example, made their acquaintances about five minutes before show time.
“You’re sizing up the horse, and he’s sizing you up, as well,” Knisley said. “I’m thinking he holds back a little bit,” she said of Sam, “but the next person who rides him will figure that out.”
Back in the saddle (again)
When it comes to being a horsewoman, meanwhile, Knisley doesn’t hold back at all — even if she does have a major at Ohio State, which, at first glance, doesn’t seem like it would fit the saddle at all.
Knisley, a Chillicothe, Ohio, native who has been riding since she was 2, is a fashion merchandising senior who has gotten her outfits dirty more than once in competition.
At the WVU farm on Sunday, Knisley was done out in the standard uniform: A crisp Stetson, an ornately beaded jacket and boots buffed to a high shine.Once during a competition, she remembered, with a rueful chuckle, she took a nasty spill in the arena, which bucked the bling from her ensemble.
“Yeah, I ended up with a mouthful of sand. Which was better than what it could have been.”
