The Alberta Horse Trials Association is excited to announce a new initiative to support the development of the EV105 level of competition in Alberta!

EV105 was introduced by Equestrian Canada in 2018 to help bridge the gap and facilitate a safer transition between the Training and Preliminary levels of competition. To date, Alberta has not successfully initiated the level, and our riders need to travel south to gain this valuable competition experience. Alberta’s current 2022 competition plans will see only one competition offer EV105 (Cochrane Horse Trials), which makes it difficult for riders to build it into their plan. The AHTA would like to see at least 3 or 4 competitions offer EV105 every year (or better yet – for all Alberta competitions to offer the level), in order to ensure that coaches, trainers, and riders can properly develop this level into their programs.

We do however recognize that there is a large cost associated with building an entire new level of competition (~$10,000 – $30,000 per site) and so we have launched this new initiative to assist our event sites with that burden. The AHTA has awarded each event site a special grant of $5,000 to be used to build EV105 level cross country jumps. This grant is in addition to our regular annual event site funding which goes towards all levels of competition and course improvements.

The AHTA is proud to say that we have been able to offer our Event Sites and Organizing Committee’s a total of $70,000 of funding in 2022!!! Safety and growing the sport of eventing remain top priorities and are considered in all of our funding and grant initiatives.

Please keep your eyes out for upcoming fundraising activities to continue to support the development of the EV105 level of competition in Alberta and other initiatives. These Phase 1 grants are just the start and won’t get us all the way to our goal.