One last dance: Auburn’s steady senior and Horsemanship All-American Caroline Fredenburg helps lead Tigers into national tournament
Fredenburg sees the Horsemanship event like a dance. Here's how her cool and calm presence — and graceful riding — have been big for Auburn in the Tigers' championship chase.
Auburn equestrian has a chance to reset.
After a disappointing loss in the semifinals of the SEC Championship, the Tigers still take the No. 1 seed into this week’s national championship tournament. As the team heads down to Ocala, Fla., for the national tournament starting Thursday, the Tigers know they have a new lease on their postseason lives, a second chance at a championship, to still achieve what they want to achieve. The biggest goal is still ahead — if the Tigers can shake off the last performance, if they can be unaffected and unfazed, if they can reset, relax, be poised and composed.
In other words: if they can be like senior leader Caroline Fredenburg.
Praised by her teammates and coaches for always being cool, calm and collected, Fredenburg heads into her last ride with the Tigers this week. Auburn as the top seed at the national tournament first takes on eighth-seeded Fresno State on Thursday. The winner crosses Saturday with the winner between fourth-seeded South Carolina and fifth-seeded SMU.
A standout for Auburn in Horsemanship, Fredenburg earned All-American and All-SEC honors this season. She’s posted an 8-3-1 record, earning Most Outstanding Performer in Horsemanship twice this season.
“You always know what you’re going to get with her,” Auburn head coach Jessica Braswell said of Fredenburg. “She’s the same every day in practice, she’s the same when she competes, and I think that that’s a great presence for her teammates — just kind of a calming presence for everyone.
“She’s a little bit of a quiet leader. She doesn’t say a lot. But she’s always going to work really hard. She’s going to do the right things. You can count on her for that. “
In equestrian, in each event, five riders from each team compete by riding the same horse in front of the meet’s judges. The competitor on each horse with the highest score earns a point for her squad. So, for a teammate, knowing that a steady hand like Fredenburg is coming up to potentially flip momentum back and clean up mistakes, even if they make a few, can be huge.
“Usually if I get a little worked up about something, it’s not usually about a horse,” Fredenburg laughed. “I don’t know, I feel like that’s just me. I’m probably a little harder to get riled up and excited.”
Instead, she’s cool and calm — and graceful, too.
It’s a strong combination for Fredenburg especially in the arena and especially in Horsemanship — the event that Fredenburg sees as a dance.
Horsemanship as a dance
Unlike the familiar Fences, the event which has the jumps that even the most casual observer has seen, or Reining, which has the fast sprints and sliding stops, Horsemanship is less about explosiveness and more about precision and posture.
Horsemanship riders are given a pattern, and they’re judged on how they execute the pattern. “So, straight lines, square corners, your circles have to be symmetrical — it’s very detail-oriented,” Fredenburg explained.
Here’s the kicker: