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By Kate Daly
Special to The Almanac
Three local vaulting teams — two in Woodside and one in Portola Valley — are gearing up to send their championship winners and horses across the country to compete in the International Federation for Equestrian Sports World Equestrian Games later this month.
Six members of the Pacific Coast Vaulting Club have qualified to represent the United States in the games at Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina, from Sept. 18 to 22. Held every four years, the competition also includes the disciplines of endurance, reining, dressage and jumping.
Pacific Coast vaulters Daniel Janes, Margaret Long, Emily Rose-Steffens, Kristian Roberts, Audrey Kiernan, and Haley Smith will compete in the squad division, where a team of up to three people at a time performs gymnastic and dance moves on horseback to music. An additional person uses a long lunge line to keep the horse moving in a circle. Carolyn Bland is their longueur.
Rose-Steffens, Janes and Roberts will also be competing as individuals after placing well in national championships in Gilroy in early August, and at another qualifying event in Germany in July.
Smith and Janes have also done well competing together this season and will pair up again for the open pas de deux freestyle event at the games.
Sydney Frankel started the Pacific Coast Vaulting Club in 1998. Members are spending much time practicing at her Woodside property to perfect their routines before her Hanoverian gelding, Sir Charles, and the club’s Oldenburg mare, Diva 506, are shipped to North Carolina.
Elizabeth Osborn of Menlo Park, a member of Woodside Vaulters Equestrian Vaulting Club, and longueur Krista Mack are also preparing to go to the games with Atterupgaards Sting, an Oldenburg gelding owned by Jim and Linda Bibbler of Woodside.
Osborn will be competing as an individual, and so will Tessa Divita of Portola Valley, a member of Portola Valley Vaulters. She will be accompanied by her mother and longueur Julie Divita and their Westphalian gelding, Pino del Rio.
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CONGRATULATIONS to the vaulters and their supporters!
Vaulting trams and individuals have had a history of being International Champions!
As a horseback rider I marvel at the talent, skin, grace, confidence and courage it takes to stand, dance, pyramid and handstand on the back of a cantering horse. Horses teach humans so many wonderful life lessons and vaulters learn their lessons while riding, dancing, and acrobat-ing with their equine partners! Very Cool, Vary Difficult and Very Intimidating! Go Vaulters!!!