Durham Rider Shines at National Equestrian Competition

Erin Featherstone of the Movado Farm Equestrian Team in Durham placed sixth in the nation at the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA) National Finals.  

Featherstone, 15, also placed sixth in the Junior Varsity Over Fences class. Trainer Louisa Fedora of Durham’s Movado Farm said “Erin is a high honor student and that is reflected in her riding. She is a lovely person, inside and out and all the horses love her.” 

In addition to her equestrian pursuits, Featherstone is a volunteer at Middlesex Hospital and participates in Indoor and Outdoor Track as a pole vaulter for Old Saybrook High School.  This is the first year the Movado Farms team competed in IEA competition.  

“Our goal this year was to form our team and learn the IEA process," Fedora said. “We surpassed this qualified for regionals and for zones. We are very proud of our team and look forward to an even more successful season next year.”

The finalists represented 889 teams and over 8,000 student-riders from eight zones throughout the United States. Individuals and teams participated in multiple competitions during the 2012-2013 regular season shows, regional and zone finals to qualify for the IEA National Finals competition. The IEA format requires that riders compete in unfamiliar tack on unfamiliar mounts; therefore, they draw their horses the day of competition and enter the arena after a brief, if any, warm-up.

Founded in 2002, the IEA was organized to promote and improve the quality of equestrian competition and instruction available to middle and secondary school students. Its purpose is to set minimum standards for competition, provide information concerning the creation and development of school associated equestrian sport programs, to generally promote the common interests of safe riding instruction and competition and education on matters related to equestrian competition at the middle and secondary school levels. For more information, please view the IEA website at: www.rideiea.org or www.movadofarm.com.

This above information came from a press release.