Trotting Her Stuff
Written by Briahna Gibson, Former Student on Monday, December 8, 2014
Ciara Benson, senior, is not only a talented Cross Country and Track athlete, as well as a participant in our school band, she also rides horses. She has been riding horses since she was very young, just for fun with her family. Ciara started riding horses competitively when she was only eight-years-old. The event she typically takes part in is eventing, “which is dressage, show-jumping, and cross country,” says Benson. “Typically they’re done in three day events, so dressage is the first day, show-jumping is the second day, and cross country is the third day,” says Benson. All the events can be on the same day, it just depends. Each event can also be done individually. “Just dressage, or just show-jumping, etc.,” but cross country usually isn’t done by itself.
Benson and her family owns four horses, but she personally only has one. Her favorite horse is Captain, “because the horse I have currently, Rio, is very lazy and stubborn”. Captain is 20-years-old, and has recently retired from jumping due to back problems. He now only does dressage.
That’s not all that Benson does. She also competes in a difficult event called a tetrathlon. A tetrathlon is an exciting combination of human and equestrian sports. It consists of riding a horse, running, shooting a pellet gun/pistol, and swimming. During the riding or show-jumping section of the tetrathlon, “you doing things a little differently than you normally would during show-jumping, in the middle of the course, there’s a gate that you have to open while on top of your horse, go through, then close,” Benson explains. Later on in the course, there is a slip rail, a fence, and you have to take a post out, put it on the ground, and walk your horse over it. Then you put the post back, and get back on your horse. “This is pretty difficult, because horses get really excited during the course” because they love jumping.
The tetrathlon was made, inspired by medieval times, “the thought of having to run, and swim, and then shoot a gun, and ride their horse” explains Benson. If you add fencing to the tetrathlon, is becomes the modern pentathlon in the Olympics.
Benson recently traveled to Kentucky this past July to compete in tetrathlon championships. Due to the expensive fees to take her own horse to Kentucky, she flew down a few days early to find a horse to use for the event. She only got to ride the horse two times before the actual event. “That was a little nerve-racking for me," luckily the horse was very good, and everything went well. There were 26 competitors in her age group. Benson plans to continue riding horses the rest of her life.
