The Equestrian Canada Eventing Committee has implemented some new eventing initiatives for 2018, made possible through the Eventing Levy Program, whereby all EC sanctioned bronze, silver, gold and platinum competitions collect and remit a set fee per horse entered. Revenue generated through the levy (increased from $12 to $15 for 2018) is used to support eventing-specific programs.
Horse Sport spoke with Ruth Allum, chair of the Eventing Committee, about what’s new for the sport and where this money is being directed.

Safety Improvement

The Safety Improvement Program is a three-component drive to provide education to officials, organizers, athletes and coaches; provide financial assistance to increase the use of frangible technology and shatterproof flags on cross-country fences; and the development and modification of EC eventing rules to improve the safety of horses and riders.

Allum explained about the fence safety funds. “What we’d like to do is get courses up to speed on having shatterproof flags or frangibles. The frangibles don’t affect a lot of courses across the country [they are used on a few training-level fences, but mainly on the new 1.5-metre level, prelim, and above] but there are some, and certainly for new courses starting out buying flagsticks it’s an expense.

“Shatterproof flagsticks are at every level and that’s totally doable for any province; any event site can go ahead and grab that funding. All of the event organizers in Canada were sent a remittance form so they can ask for the money back now. Anybody that purchased shatterproof flags even at the end of last year, we’re going to retroactively give them $300 towards helping with the cost of that. Certainly, in the smaller provinces, they’ve sort of steered away from the flagsticks, but this is going to allow them to get into it a little bit, which is great. We want to make sure we give it all out.”

Athlete Development

Attracting interest in the sport as early as possible is key to its growth. “In the coaching structure right now we have the Rider Level program, which is great, but the eventing component never appears in it until rider nine, ten. The question that we were asking ourselves was, why don’t we have any development of our athletes before that program starts?” said Allum. “If you think of the reach that we could get, just in terms of getting people interested in the sport and riding cross-country safely, that’s where we wanted to go with it.”

The committee, in collaboration with Ontario Equestrian, is looking at a rider four through eight pilot, possibly as soon as August. “We’d like to get it out there and pilot it and then obviously come back, tweak it, and then roll it out as an addition to the rider levels in 2019.”

She continued, “We’ve aligned it with the current LTD pathway, the current Eventing Annex 1 which is in our rule book. At entry level we have set out that these are the things you’re going to find on cross-country and in the dressage test; same at pre-training, same at training, same at prelim. We’ve aligned it with the existing rider levels so that at rider four you jump fairly minimally, but at rider four in the eventing component of it, once you’ve done your flat and jump component, you would then have an add-on to a cross-country component which would be optional.”

The goal of this program is “to increase the pool of people we’re reaching, and increase the level of education in terms of not only our athletes, but also our coaches.”

Exposing kids to the exciting “hook” of cross-country earlier in their riding education may ensure they stay in riding longer in general, and in eventing in particular. “I completely agree with you, it is the hook. What we try to do is keep it so that you don’t need to be an event facility to do it; a regular riding school facility could be able to do the rider level program in some capacity for the eventing add-on.

“At the very first level we have things like knowledge of speed cross-country, which means cantering in an open field at 300 metres a minute. For a lot of the kids in regular riding schools, that would be a big enough challenge for them. Once we’ve got them aligned at a level where they could go out and compete at pre-entry or entry, we’ve got a component in there that has a little question-and-answer knowledge of some of the very basic rules, like what does flagging mean on the cross-country, and what’s some safe equipment to be wearing when you go cross-country?

“That’s super exciting for me, because I grew up in Pony Club and we all went cross-country, and as a kid I hunted and we all hacked. But there are so many places I go to where even just riding outside of the ring is a big thing. If you ask them, ‘Have you ever tried eventing?’ it’s just so far out of their realm ‒ but it doesn’t really need to be. It’s quite safe, done the right way.”

Eventing Day Ticket

To encourage grassroots participation across the country, the EC Eventing Committee has reduced the Eventing Day Ticket cost from $10 to $5 to allow riders to give the sport a test run without being required to purchase an EC Eventing Affiliation.
Allum admitted that the response has been slow. “We’re trying everything to reduce the barriers to actually going to an event, so the $5 day ticket for us was an easy one to try and get people interested in the sport. There’s not been a lot of uptake at the moment, but the Eventing Quarterly [e-newsletter] that we just sent out is new for us in terms of getting information out to the eventing public. One of the biggest things is increased communication, so that people know it’s an option.”

New 1.5-metre Division

“From my own experience with athletes, the gap between training level and prelim level is exponentially the largest gap,” said Allum. “At the training level, the speed cross-country is 450 metres a minute; at prelim it jumps to 520. We go from 3’3 at training level to 3’7 at prelim.

“It was a big gap, and we were losing athletes who just weren’t able to make the jump from training to prelim. The metre-five sits right between the training and the prelim level. Hopefully, this will help them out a little bit.” The Foshay International taking place Labour Day weekend in New Brunswick will be introducing the new FEI introductory 1.5m division in addition to a regular CCI one-star.

“Next year when star system changes for FEI eventing competitions, [the metre-five] will be the one-star and then what is now the prelim CCI one-star will be a two-star and the CCI two-star will be a three-star, and so on up to five stars.”

Competition Structure

“Rule submissions are just coming in. One of the things we have talked about, and I know the other disciplines are talking about as well and working on, is competition structure in terms of the LTD pathway and meaningful competition. Eventing competition structure is quite pure from the point of view that we have guidelines for when horses should compete at various levels, when athletes should compete at various levels, what the requirements will be. Juniors starting at training level have to meet qualifications at the level below in order to move up, and seniors beyond that as well. From our point of view, we sort of have a very laid-out structure that’s based on long-term athlete development and athlete development as a whole, so we’re sort of very aligned.

“I had an interesting opportunity to sit on a dressage committee call and explain our structure in terms of the bronze, silver, gold structure the way it aligns to us. They are sort of thinking in that direction as well, so that we’re not taxing people who are starting into the sport by having to have a gold membership to go to a lower-level competition. Eventers need a bronze, they need their Canadian eventing membership (which they can do as a $5 day ticket) and they need their PSO membership. We’re trying to make the barrier to entry level as easy as possible.”

Funding and Partnering

“We lost our Own The Podium funding after the London Olympics, so without that funding, we’ve sort of been on a bit of a shoestring,” said Allum. “Our Sport Canada funding was also cut over the last two years, so we really are looking at being more self-sufficient.

“Rob Stevenson is a brilliant speaker and a brilliant team manager for the High Performance Advisory Group, he and his team are putting together a fundraising committee so that we don’t need to pull from national programs at all.

“One of the things that we’re strongly encouraging and trying to facilitate is provincial Horse Trials Associations working with and partnering with their provincial sport organizations, something that in some provinces has worked well and, in some provinces, has not worked at all.

“Typically, the provinces have quite a bit of funding towards athlete development. When I was in Nova Scotia, I facilitated a meeting between the executive director of the Nova Scotia Equestrian Federation and the president of the Horse Trials Association there to talk about what they could do together to help support their athletes.

“Instead of looking to national, we’re really mandated to oversee the whole thing, but funding for the national team becomes a priority. There are so many opportunities provincially working with a provincial sport organization. Nova Scotia has put together a whole athlete development plan; they’re going to have training camps, they’re going to have mental training come into play. NSEF offered their Horse Trials association their boardroom for any clinics they want to hold at no charge. Just that kind of conversation and understanding that we really all are working together. We can’t work in silos anymore, we have to as a bigger group.

“I know Quebec also has, through Cheval Quebec, a connection with high-performance athletes on a provincial level, so prelim and even training level athletes can get financial assistance through their PSO, which is so cool.”

Travel costs

People have a misconception that eventing committee members are using levy funds to fly all over the globe.
“Trust me that my husband and I have many disagreements about this!” said Allum, laughing. “There is no financial advantage to being a volunteer on one of these committees, let me guarantee it. We are very lucky to have a really devoted committee, and we have one face-to-face meeting a year. There are members of our committee that pay for their hotel, their travels, their meals ‒ they ask for nothing. There are a few from farther afield and we try to cover their flight and accommodations, but really the budget for this committee is incredibly small because a lot of us do it on our own dime.
“To that fact, our selectors this year have been travelling primarily on their own money. I’m not going to be the chair of eventing for life, that would be the wrong thing to do. while I can do it for a couple of years I think of it as my donation back to the sport. I could write a cheque and donate, or I could give my time and my expenses to doing it. We strongly encourage that on the committee, that’s sort of the feeling we want to have.”

Fundraising initiatives

“We recognize that in a Worlds year, our funding is a little bit different than in a Pan Am or an Olympic year,” said Allum. “The travel for the horses in a Pan Am and an Olympic year is assisted through the IOC, whereas here it’s completely on us. What we don’t want to do is drain funds from programs that are going to help our event organizers and our athletes across the country.

“We have recognize that without a national team, we lose a lot of grip on the eventing community. We have to have heroes. Having our national team go out and compete is very important to us. Certainly, we try to cover as much [funding] as we can. We’ll provide them [the riders] technical support that supports transportation, accommodation while they’re there, and accommodation for their groom while they’re there. They shouldn’t need for much, but if they can fundraise on their own a little bit, great. We strongly encourage that.”

“One of the things we used to have on the eventing section of the EC website before it was rebranded was an online donations portal. That doesn’t exist anymore, so we’ve asked EC for permission to have that back, so that anyone who donates to eventing at EC, the funds will come to us and they can get a tax receipt through EC.

“I know the business development department is working on funding for all disciplines going to WEG. They’ve sort of taken on the role a little bit of trying to help us out which has been huge as well. Hopefully, we’re back on target now, and we certainly are working well towards making sure that our WEG team is sufficiently staffed and has a great run at Tryon.”