Lambein's Got Talent poster - Courtesy of Caleb Welker
By Isabella Bratton ('26)
Lambein’s Got Talent will take place on Saturday, Feb. 17, from 8-9 p.m. in the CFA Recital Hall.
11 Lambein Hall residents will be showcasing their unique talents with the potential to win up to $100. At the end of the show, the audience will have the opportunity to choose a winner to receive the prize.
Senior Nuri Park (‘24), the Assistant Resident Director, explained that they took the name “Lambein’s Got Talent” from both the famous show “America’s Got Talent” and “Britain’s Got Talent.” The talent show was started last 2022-2023 school year by the male Resident Assistants (RA) of Lambein.
All of Lambein’s RAs have been involved in the preparation process in different ways; advertising, emailing, hosting and judging.
Park said that, although the audience will be choosing the winner, the RAs have a part in making sure it’s a fair competition.
“The RA’s,” Park stated, “mediate the votes to make sure there is no audience bias, but the audience ultimately decides the winner.”
The performers will provide a wide variety of entertainments for the audience, such as singing, poetry recitation, dancing, playing instruments, a weather forecast and more. Park mentioned an exciting act called “Master of balance,” although he wouldn’t divulge the details about it. At last year’s show, Junior Ethan McCarthy (‘25) remarked that groups played kazoos, the piano and danced.
“Guys are excited to show off to the school,” McCarthy, a judge for the event, said, “we have put a lot of work into this, and it will be a fun night.”
It won’t just be one person walking away with $100. There is a second place award of $50 and third place will receive $25.
Students are highly encouraged to attend, and the hosts are sure audience members will walk away entertained.
“I think the campus needs an event where people can just have fun and relax,” Park stated. ★
On April 20, the Houghton College Equestrian Center hosted its annual Western New York Dressage Association’s Challenge Series Show. This Saturday, April 27, the Equestrian Center will host its annual Spring Hunter-Jumper Show.
These two shows allow students to interact with outside riders, trainers, and judges every year. The Dressage Challenge Show is one in a series of shows, put on at different farms, that is sponsored by the Western New York Dressage Association (WYNDA), of which Professor Jo-Anne Young, Houghton’s Equestrian Program Director, is the Vice President.
Carrie Keagan, senior psychology major and equestrian minor, will be competing for her last time as a student at Houghton. She said, “The shows is a great chance for Houghton students to get a chance to compete against people outside of Houghton and see how they really match up against other riders. Most of us enjoy competing, and, as a group, we generally place very well in the classes.”
Last Saturday, students in Dressage, Competition Dressage, and those who practice and train outside of a class setting, competed on Houghton’s school horses. Students who board their own horses at Houghton have also competed in the past, but none chose to this year.
Historically, the highlight of the show is the Twelve-Horse Quadrille, which is a pattern ridden to music by twelve horse and rider pairs. Every spring semester, a different group of Houghton students learn the pattern and perform at the WYNDA Dressage show and at the Equestrian Program Senior Exhibition that will take place on May 10.
The first three levels of Dressage, Introductory, Training, and First Level were performed by many different riders at the show. The Junior High Scorer was Joanna Sudlow, riding one of Houghton’s schoolmasters, Entertainer. Kate Shannon, also riding Entertainer, placed first in the Senior Training Level One class, where she competed solely against riders not from Houghton College.
Dressage is one of the elements of the Equestrian sport that is performed at the Olympic level. Houghton teaches all its Equestrian majors the basic movements and theory behind the discipline, and, if they wish, students have the opportunity to learn movements that are performed at the Olympic level from Professor Young, if they choose to put in the time and perseverance.
Students from Horsemanship I to Mini-Prix Jumping Equitation (the highest level jumping academic course available to Houghton’s students) will be competing this Saturday. Classes will be offered in the under-saddle and over-fences categories. Under-saddle simply means that the horse and rider will compete with everyone else registered in their class at the same time and only have to go through the different gaits; there are no fences involved.
The spring Hunter-Jumper show also offers classes in both Hunter and Equitation categories. If the class is designated Hunter, then the horse and rider pair are judged only on what the horse does in the ring: the quality of its gaits and movement, its athleticism and conformation (or build), and several other technical factors. In an equitation class, the horse and rider pair are judged based upon the rider’s position and skills when riding, regardless of the horse, whether it behaves perfectly or takes off bucking.
The show ends with three jumper classes, which are not judged by the horse or the rider, but rather the speed that the pair can complete a course. The obstacles are higher and more complicated or distracting in jumper classes, and the goal is to leave all the fences untouched in the shortest amount of time.
Andrea Ypma, a senior, said, “The hunter-jumper show provides students a chance to show what they have learned over a variety of courses designed to test their skill.” Ypma has a vast knowledge of course design concepts and spent her internship at Thunderbird Equestrian Show Park in Canada, a facility that hosts high-level hunter-jumper competitions. She has helped to design challenging and interesting courses in the past.
Houghton’s Equestrian Center also hosts an annual USEF/USDF Recognized Dressage Show, a horse trial in the fall, which incorporates, dressage, showjumping and cross country, and a Christmas Hunter-Jumper Fun Show. All events are free to spectators, and the Equestrian students would love to see the rest of the college spend some time at the horse barn.
The program offers many excellent opportunities, the shows being just a few. Young said, “The Equestrian Program gives students a solid foundation in Equestrian Studies, based on the principles of classical dressage, and incorporating riding, teaching riding, training horses, and care of the horse. If you love horses, and are willing to take the time and effort to learn to understand their culture and how to ‘speak their language,’ the amazing lesson horses at the Equestrian Center have some fantastic things to teach you.”
