Seventeen riders from Lake and Cook County rode to glorious success at the 2011 Illinois Special Olympics, on September 10. All year long, these riders have come to Horsefeathers Therapeutic Riding Center in Lake Forest for their weekly lessons – traveling from Norridge, Highland Park, Northbrook, Ingleside, Green Oaks, Inverness, Libertyville, Grayslake, Chicago, Hoffman Estates, Skokie, Schaumburg, and Wadsworth – training to be able to achieve their personal best in this statewide equestrian competition.
New this year for the Horsefeathers competitors – in addition to the familiar walk-trot-canter classes of English Equitation – were Showmanship Classes. In Showmanship, the rider is unmounted, and the horse in halter only. Riders had been practicing for weeks to successfully demonstrate skill and safety in handling and showing a horse in hand, knowing they will also be judged on the appearance and turnout of both horse and rider.
Most riders arrived in Decatur – site of the competition – with their families the night before the show. The horses traveled down in comfortable trailers – kindness of Rush and Carl Weeden, of Brookwood Farms – arriving in time to get settled in their new surroundings and to be ridden through practice sessions.
Threatening skies and sodden ground from earlier rains pushed the competition indoors. Events of the day sped by, the riders keyed up with high anxiety and excitement. Each class takes only a few moments, and while one class competes in the show ring, the next group warms up in the practice ring. Each horse is sparkling clean, with fancy braids and polished tack, and riders, helmeted and wearing their entry numbers on their backs, look fresh scrubbed and ready. The pattern each must ride – a circle around cones, a turn, another circle, and backing up – has been practiced over and over, but is still not easy.
By lunchtime, the first 20 classes are over, and the Horsefeathers riders are done – proud champions now wearing medals and ribbons, exhausted but elated, many grinning ear to ear. The afternoon offers an opportunity to watch and enjoy some of the other competitions, Stock Seat classes with horses being ridden in Western style.
The riders were all geared up for an evening of the Parade of Champions, the official Opening Ceremonies, dinner, and – most fun of all – the dance. But another impending storm resulted in the announcement that the Opening Ceremonies would be indoors at the Civic Center, and no parade. Yet even the cancellation of the parade – the much anticipated throng of happy riders, proud coaches, beaming families, and numerous volunteers – could not dim the jubilant spirits of seventeen very special young individuals who came to Decatur to do their personal best and relish the camaraderie and celebration with others from all over Illinois. The pageantry of the Opening Ceremonies, the fun of being with new and old friends, and the giddy magic of the dance, will be memories commingled with the thrill of competing in the Special Olympics. Nothing can rain on that parade!