By Mike Urena
Staff Writer

Purdue's equestrian team earned a spot in last weekend's zone competition by placing first in the region earlier this month but fell short in its bid for a trip to nationals in Atlanta.

After Purdue's outstanding performance in the regional competition this year, the team failed as it faced better teams from different regions in the Midwestern zone.

Because the University of Finely was hosting the zone meet, the Boilers could not use their own horses and had to hope for a good pick through horse drawings.

Coach Jerry Steinmetz said there was a lack of drawings, which did not make horse picks fair for the Boilers.

The equestrian team competed in the English and Western divisions, and both sections of the team came close to qualifying for nationals.

The English division competitors are judged on the style of their performance and how they jump with the horse. Teams competing here need to place first or second to move on to Atlanta.

Steinmetz believes that the jumping class was the team's poorest performed event and if the Boilers had done a bit better, they could have gone to nationals for their overall team competition score.

"We just got off in a hole and couldn't recover," said Steinmetz.

The team earned 38 points in this event — three points from advancing to nationals.

Steinmetz believes that the Boilers could have gotten second place if Miami (Ohio) wouldn't have won its first two jump classes.

"They got lucky on these wins; we were only seven points behind them," said Steinmetz.

The Western division portion of Purdue's squad performed with style but was not successful enough to advance. The Boilermakers placed fourth competing against Ohio State, the University of Finely and Nebraska and just missed the qualifications for this division by three points.

The team placed third out of four teams overall and would have had another opportunity to go to nationals if it would have scored two more points in any of the divisions.

"This has been the third time since 1986 we haven't sent a team to nationals," said Steinmetz. "University of Finely is a school that rides all the time as a varsity sport, but riding is just an extra-curricular activity at Purdue."

The Boilers do have something to fall back on because four individuals qualified to go to nationals.

The three English division qualifiers were Sarah Cohen on the open flat, Abby Prather being the novice on the flat and Jody Waller having the most points in the English division in the entire region.

The only Western qualifier was Nichole Buck, who was the high point rider for the region.

"We did perform above our expectations," said Steinmetz. "I am disappointed but still thrilled that we had many individual riders going to nationals."