Intercollegiate Horse Show Association

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 shows 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 [http://www.ihsainc.com IHSA ] has 29 Regions in 9 Zones with more than 300 college teams in 45 states and Canada. There are more than 6500 active competition riders. Both men and women are eligible to compete.

Divisions

Within the IHSA, riders can compete in English riding ("hunt seat"), Western riding ("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 regularly for more than two consecutive years 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 advanced. Riders who have been riding longer than two years but who have not competed in a recognized horse show start in beginner walk-trot-canter. Once the rider has accumulated 18 points, she 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-trot, 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 he chooses. But to compete in a reining class the rider must be in the open division.

Judging

In both the English and Western divisions, the riders are judged on their equitation, meaning that each rider is individually judged on his effectiveness as a rider, his ability to look aesthically pleasing (ie. 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 questionaire.

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 "donated" for the day from other teams, coaches, and 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 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 cummulative team score of 35 points 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-five points, which can be accumulated over a number of 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 most competitive division.

Competition Hierarchy

With over 300 teams and more than 6,000 riders, the IHSA divides the country into nine “Zones” organized geographically. Every Zone is divided into two to four regions, and each region consists of five to fifteen collegiate teams. The teams within the region compete against each other in ten horse shows per year. Each place (first through sixth) has an assigned point value that accumulates throughout the seasons. When riders acquire thirty-five (or twenty-eight for Open) points in their division, they are then qualified to compete in the Regional Finals competition. The top three riders in each class move on to compete in the Zone Finals and the top two 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 2008 IHSA National Competition will be held in Burbank, California at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center May 8-11.

Ivy League Championships

The Ivy League Championship horseshow is held in April every year, just after the completion of zone finals. The teams that compete in this show are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. The horseshow is run similarly to a regular intercollegiate horseshow. 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 Ivy League Championship was held at the Oxley Equestrian Center at Cornell University on April 19, 2008. The 2008 winner was Brown University. Cornell University was the reserve champion team. Previous winners of the Ivy League Championship include Dartmouth (2007) and Brown (2006).

Famous Alumni

Many famous riders and trainers began their equestrian careers in the IHSA. According to Bob Cacchione, “Some of today’s top riders came through the IHSA, including Olympic medalist Beezie Patton [now Beezie Madden] , Peter Wylde, Greg Best, and Mark Weissbecker [ [http://ecgulls.cstv.com/sports/c-equest/spec-rel/042307aaa.html New England to Host the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association National Championships - Top Hunt Seat and Western equitation riders to compete ] ] .

References

External links

* [http://www.ihsainc.com Official IHSA website]
* [http://www.ihsa.com IHSA website]
* [http://www.equisearch.com/education/ihsa EquiSearch website (news within the IHSA)]
* [http://www.campusequestrian.com Campus Equestrian]
* [http://www.chronofhorse.com The Chronicle of the Horse]
* [http://www.usef.com United States Equestrian Federation]