The Estevan 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games provided an opportunity for the South East equestrian team to have some fun and capture a few medals in the process.
The barrel racing competitions proved to be Team South East’s strength with Kayla Wanner winning a silver medal with a two-day and four-race combined time of 1:14.390 and Kia Rosenbaum capturing the bronze thanks to a time of 1:14.877 in the individual co-ed event that was held last Thursday and Friday at the Estevan Exhibition Grounds. In the barrel racing co-ed team race on Saturday morning, the South East squad of Wanner, McKenna Desautels and Rosenbaum owned the podium with a gold medal winning time of 1:13.814 among the three competitors.
Indian Head’s Rebecca Russell also captured a bronze medal for Team South East in the individual co-ed jumping competition with a two-round points total of 33. The closest that members of Team South East got to a medal in the reining challenge was a fourth-place showing in the co-ed team event that featured Radville’s Erin Galarneau and Odessa’s Clayton Spencer.
“It was fun,” said Clayton, 13, noting reining involves completing a pattern in the show ring where a horse and rider does spins, races down the sides of the ring before rolling back in the other direction, makes a sliding stop and pushes back in reverse. “It’s a lot of teamwork with your horse.”
Redvers' Robynne Moreau, Maryfield’s Hailey Olson and Edenwold’s Rylie Reichel won a bronze medal for Team South East in the dressage co-ed team competition with a two-rider percentage score of 123.4. Rylie, 17, said the win came down to teamwork and coordination with their horses as well as a lot of hard work at practices before the Games.
“Today was our lucky day,” said Rylie about the dressage competition where riders dressed in English attire complete a course with their horse in an allotted time. My horse True West Madison “was a lot more calmer and she listened a lot better and she was having as much fun as I was.”
