Intercollegiate Horse Show Association
Encyclopedia
Overview
The Intercollegiate Horse Show Association or IHSA is an equestrian organization established in 1967 by Bob Cacchione when he was a sophomore at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. It was begun to promote the ability of any college student to participate in horse showHorse show
A Horse show is a judged exhibition of horses and ponies. Many different horse breeds and equestrian disciplines hold competitions worldwide, from local to the international levels. Most horse shows run from one to three days, sometimes longer for major, all-breed events or national and...
s as individuals or in teams regardless of the rider's beginning skill level, financial status, or past riding experience. The association also emphasizes education, sportsmanship, enthusiasm, and team spirit through intercollegiate equine competition. The IHSA has 31 Regions in 9 Zones with more than 370 college teams in 45 states and Canada. There are more than 8300 active competition riders. Both men and women are eligible to compete.
Divisions
Within the IHSA, riders can compete in English ridingEnglish riding
English riding is a term used to describe a form of horse riding that is seen throughout the world. There are many variations in English riding, but all feature a flat English saddle without the deep seat, high cantle or saddle horn seen on a Western saddle nor the knee pads seen on an Australian...
("hunt seat"), Western riding
Western riding
Western riding is a style of horseback riding which evolved from the ranching and warfare traditions brought to the Americas by the Spanish Conquistadors, and both equipment and riding style evolved to meet the working needs of the cowboy in the American West...
("stock seat"), or both. There are 8 different levels within the English division and a total of 9 competition classes including: walk-trot; beginner and advanced walk-trot-canter; novice, intermediate, and open over fences (jumping); and novice, intermediate, and open on the flat. In English shows, the riders may choose to ride in an over fences class, a flat class, or both.
The many divisions available allow riders of all levels to compete as part of an intercollegiate equestrian team. The most basic division, walk-trot, is reserved for riders who have not ridden in more than 24 weeks of lessons and who have never jumped or competed in a horse show. The next division is walk-trot-canter, which is further divided into a beginner and more advanced. Riders who have been riding longer than 24 weeks of lesson but who have not competed in any horse show competition that requires to jump more than 18", start in beginner walk-trot-canter. Once the rider has accumulated 18 points, the rider moves on to advanced walk-trot-canter. Walk-trot and walk-trot-canter are the only divisions that do not include a jumping phase.
The novice, intermediate, and open divisions have both flat work and work over fences. Novice division jumps are set at 2’-2’3”, intermediate jumps at 2’6”-2’9”, and open jumps at 2’9”-3’. The novice courses tend to be very straightforward while the open courses require more challenging patterns such as bending lines or rollback turns.
There are 6 levels of competition for Western riders who compete in classes such as walk-jog, horsemanship, and reining (a special class where the rider completes a specific pattern made up of skills such as flying lead changes, rollbacks, and a sliding stop). Like the English division, Western classes range from beginner to open. A Western rider may compete in both a horsemanship class and a reining class if one chooses, but to compete in a reining class the rider must be in the open division and have 6 months professional training prior to competitions.
Judging
In both the English and Western divisions, the riders are judged on their equitationEquitation
Equitation is the art or practice of horse riding or horsemanship.More specifically, equitation may refer to a rider's position while mounted, and encompass a rider's ability to ride correctly and with effective aids. In horse show competition, the rider, rather than the horse is evaluated...
, meaning that each rider is individually judged on his effectiveness as a rider, his ability to look aesthetically pleasing (i.e. posture and positioning on the horse), and his ability to make riding a horse seem easy and effortless. In "regular" shows riders can choose to compete in equitation shows, in which the rider is judged rather than the horse. To greater level the playing field, riders compete against people of similar experience level as determined by an IHSA questionnaire.
IHSA shows are unlike "regular" horse shows. A host IHSA team organizes each show and invites the other member colleges in its region to attend and compete. The show usually takes place at the host team's facility, or another nearby. Competitors are not permitted to ride their own horses. The horses used at an IHSA show are horses that are already provided by host stables, "donated" for the day from other teams, coaches, and/or area equestrian facilities. Each horse is schooled (warmed-up) before the classes begin by non-competing riders, while competing riders watch to discover particular attributes of each horse. Riders participating in the competition are not allowed to choose the horse they would like to ride. Each rider is assigned a horse, partially through random selection and partially through a matching of the horse's abilities with those needed for horses participating in certain classes. (It would not be appropriate for a horse that does not do over fences to be placed in an over fences class. The same goes for reining horses for western.) The rider mounts the horse he has been assigned just before his class is scheduled to begin. Competing riders are not permitted to warm-up or get used to their assigned horse. One of the goals of the IHSA is to provide all riders with an equal chance of performing well in their class; by not allowing riders to compete on horses that they are comfortable with judges can accurately rate the ability of the rider to effectively control the horse and ride well.
Individual ribbons correspond to points, which combine for a team score. Each team can only have one point rider per division and the lowest score on the card is dropped. Thus, larger teams are not given an advantage. A cumulative team score of 49 points for english or 42 for western would be a perfect card. Also to keep the divisions fair, a rider can only score a given amount of points before they must move up to a more difficult level. The points correspond as follows:
- 1st place: 7 points
- 2nd place: 5 points
- 3rd place: 4 points
- 4th place: 3 points
- 5th place: 2 points
- 6th place: 1 point
In order to qualify for regionals, a rider needs to accumulate a certain number of points. Thirty-six points, which can be accumulated over a number of years but less than 5 years, are needed to point out of every division except for open. Open riders need to acquire only twenty-eight points to qualify to regionals. Once a rider has qualified for regionals in a certain division, she must compete the rest of the year in the next division. The other exception is walk-trot and walk-jog divisions. You are only allowed to be in this division for 2 years. Then you must move up to the next division.
Competition Hierarchy
With over 370 teams and more than 8,000 riders, the IHSA divides the country into eight “Zones” organized geographically. Every Zone is divided into two to five regions, and each region ranges with approximately five to fifteen collegiate teams. The teams within the region compete against each other in eight to ten horse shows per year. Each place (first through sixth) has an assigned point value that accumulates throughout the seasons. When riders acquire thirty-six(or twenty-eight for Open) points in their division, they are then qualified to compete in the Regional Finals competition. The top two riders in each class move on to compete in the Zone Finals and the top rider from Zones move on to the national competition. The high-point team (In some zones, the top two teams at the zone finals compete at the national finals) from each region also competes in Zones for the chance to represent their zone at the National Competition. The 2012 IHSA National Competition will be held in May 3-6, 2012 at the Hunt Horse Complex in Raleigh, North Carolina.Ivy League Championships
The Ivy LeagueIvy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
Championship horse show is held in April every year, just after the completion of zone finals. The teams that compete in this show are Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. The horse show is run similarly to a regular intercollegiate horse show. The only difference is that a championship ride off is held after each division between the winners of each class in the division to determine the Ivy League Champion. The most recent Ivy League Championship was held at Dartmouth Equestrian Center on April 17, 2010. The 2010 winner was the Dartmouth team. Previous winners of the Ivy League Championship include Cornell (2009), Brown (2008), and Dartmouth (2007).