By Lisa Peterson

Natalie Williams grew up on a horse.

Her early days were spent at Norfield Farm on Poverty Hollow Road learning to navigate the likes of Goldie and Chrissy around a big indoor arena. Soon, she graduated from school horses to fancy mounts of her own, eventually competing in the A-circuit horse shows in the top junior equitation divisions.

When it was time to head off to college, after her graduation from Newtown High School in 2000, it was only natural she selected a school with an equestrian team. Roger Williams University in Rhode Island fit her requirements perfectly.

“I automatically had friends in college with the same interests,” Natalie said.

After a rider is at the pinnacle of the junior ranks just before their 18th birthday, such as Natalie found herself, they have two routes to follow; either become a professional – riding and training other people’s horses – or fall into the amateur abyss, where you are basically forgotten about. Intercollegiate team competition provided a wonderful opportunity to bridge the gap.

Intercollegiate Horse

Show Association

Riding in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association each year (fall and spring semesters) is like riding in the Olympics with both team and individual standings.

“I loved being part of a team,” Natalie said. “After showing on the A-circuit I was sour and frustrated, but the team got me back into riding and more involved since it is a varsity sport.”

Riders from each region go to a different host college for competitions. Everyone on the team gets to ride as individuals, but each skill level only gets one “point rider” for the team. Only point riders earn points for the team. Riders are selected in advance of the competition by the team captains who determine the strategy for the day. A random draw is done at the beginning of each show to see who rides what horses.

“It’s a guessing game. You know the riders in the competition but you don’t know what horses they are going to draw that day,” explained Natalie, a team co-captain for the past two years. The competition is a more level playing field than what you had on the A-circuit because of the draw of the horses. “Eventually, everyone gets a good or a bad horse.”

Growing With The Team

Natalie has grown right alongside her team. This year, as co-captain, she helped coached a team that won its first-ever Regional Championship beating out their annual rival Brown University, which routinely was the National Champion.

“They always beat us,” she said. “But we beat them this year. We are finally competitive.”

Natalie credits the team’s willingness to do other things together – like gym workouts, Pilates classes or the team pasta parties the night before competitions – as the fuel which “helped us to grow as a unit.”

As the first place team from the Regional level, they advanced to the Zones finals.  Roger Williams placed fourth their first time out at the Zone level.

This year at Zones, Natalie was leading in the “Caccione Cup,” a special award for the rider with the most individual points, when her horse stop at the first fence (that luck of the draw thing). She lost the “cup” and fell to third overall in the standings for a second consecutive year.

“Even after I lost the cup, I was happy for the rest of the team. I had to get up from my disappointment because my teammates looked to me for help,” Natalie said. “It helped me grow a lot as a person.”

She has also grown as a rider and a coach. Qualified individually for three years and finishing first and second in Open fences at the regional level and placing sixth and seventh at the Zone level as well as being named a Roger Williams Athlete of the Week.

As a team co-captain, she helped coach a second place team finish last year (a tie with the University of Connecticut behind rival Brown University) and earlier this year she went to Nationals in Nashville to help coach a fellow teammate who qualified individually in the Walk-Trot-Canter division.

“I love coaching because it teaches me a lot about leadership and learning to get along with other people,” she said.

Practice Makes Perfect

When Natalie isn’t attending classes she drives to five different barns to catch up on some extra curricular riding. Her Thoroughbred horse Ace is at a nearby barn with a Hanovarian Stallion, L’Espirt, which she leases for showing in the Adult Jumpers. She also manages to exercise a string of dressage horses and teach some young ones how to jump. 

“My passion is horses,” said Natalie, who is majoring in elementary education and psychology with a minor in American studies. Currently, she is student teaching second grade in Falls River, Massachusetts.

By choosing a teaching career, Natalie explained, it gives her the ability to use her coaching talents but also summers off to pursue what she hopes will be an outstanding career as an amateur rider. 

This fall will be her last semester and she’s hoping to earn enough individual points to qualify in the Open division again for the Regionals. She will be ineligible to compete with the team since she graduates in January.

While her final goal is to make it Nationals in the open division her greatest intercollegiate experience, she said, was creating friends and memories that will last long after the standings fade.