The Equine Canada Competitions and Officials committees are pleased to announce the success of the second year of the Equine Canada Bronze Officials Subsidy Program Pilot.

With close to $6,000 awarded in 2011 to Bronze level competition organizers to assist them in securing licensed officials for their events; this is a program that has quickly made a significant difference to organizing clubs across the country. Overall over $12,000 has been awarded. By providing financial support evenly across this country and across all discipline and breed competitions, competitors have been assured of competing under the jurisdiction of highly trained and accredited judges and course designers at licensed competitions.

In 2011, 20 Bronze competitions representing the disciplines of hunter/jumper, endurance, driving, dressage, breed sports, reining, eventing, general performance and Pony Club in seven provinces received funding after undergoing an application process adjudicated by members of the Officials and Competitions committees.

After successful completion of the two-year Pilot, the program will be reviewed prior to its continuation in 2013.
“Much has been learned about the needs of our lower level organizers,” said Anne Welch, chair of the Equine Canada Competitions Committee. “It is now time to determine how best to bring this program forward in a sustainable way.” 

“We have learned a lot from this program and future planning will include incentives for using ‘r’ officials and ‘B’ officials for dressage and eventing so that the opportunities Bronze competitions offer under the Subsidy program will help accelerate the hands-on officiating required to gain promotion in their field of endeavour,” said the chair of the Officials Committee, Jill Barton, who has been responsible for the program since 2010.

In addition Barton praised her subcommittee, “the program would not have happened without the Cec Watson, Ruth Carlson, Isabel Reinerston and Mary Ruth Moore who have contributed their expertise to this program as well as to the staff in the Equine Canada Competitions Department.”

For a full list of recipients of the Pilot Program as well as program details for 2013 can be found at http://equinecanada.ca/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=5496&Itemid=88&lang=en.