Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990 TAG: 9006170064
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Virginia CorEast State Games has been described by its organizers as an Olympic-style sports festival. The first event of the first State Games, the equestrian competition, will mirror the Olympics' version.
The annual Virginia Region championship for the U.S. Pony Club also will serve as the State Games man-on-horse competition. The Virginia Horse Center in Lexington will be host to the event June 30 and July 1, one week before the rest of the Roanoke-based State Games.
About 125 riders on 25 pony club teams will compete for the first State Games medals. There will be no individual competition for the riders, who will primarily range in age from 14-21, said Brian Ross, one of the equestrian coordinators for the State Games.
The same horse and rider will be paired in all three phases of the competition, Ross said.
The club members will compete at three levels: C, B and A. Pony club members begin in D class, for beginners.
Not only will the State Games medals be a stake on the Horse Center grounds. The top finishers for the state pony club championship also will qualify for the U.S. Pony Club Championships, scheduled Aug. 13-19 at the horse center.
Ross said scores of the top three riders on each team will count toward the team total. The riders will compete in the same three events used in Olympic competition - dressage, cross country and show jumping. The three-day eventing total will determine medal winners.
"The sport is strong in Northern Virginia," said Ross, a native of England, who, with his wife, Penny, is a horse-trials organizer at the Horse Center. "I'm sure some of the riders we'll have here are Olympic hopefuls."
Equestrian competition is the only Olympic sport in which men and women are entered in the same events. So it will be in the State Games, too.
Ross said the State Games equestrian competition is being held a week before the rest of the Games because the Virginia Pony Club event was scheduled before it was tied into the State Games concept by the Roanoke-based Virginia Amateur Sports.
The Saturday competition begins at 9 a.m. with dressage, followed by cross-country riding, over the hilly 2 1/2-mile course on the Horse Center grounds, about 11 a.m. The Sunday show begins about 8 a.m. with the ceremonial parade of teams, with show jumping starting about 9.
Former U.S. Olympian Jimmy Wofford, who runs the American Horse Show Association, will be staging clinics for visitors and riders at the Horse Center during the State Games competition.
Admission is $5 per day. Ross said visitors are urged to spend the day at the grounds, and picnic facilities are available.
by CNB