NEW INITIATIVE FOR ONTARIO’S JUNIOR EVENTERS: Zara’s Legacy of Excellence
The OEA and the Zara Buren Memorial Foundation are delighted to announce a pilot project in 2024 to recognize and celebrate Ontario’s most successful Junior eventers: Zara’s Legacy of Excellence.
“Supporting and growing the sport of Eventing starts with our Juniors. We wanted to work with the OEA to pilot a fair, performance-based program for the 2024 show season to acknowledge and encourage high performance across all levels at our sanctioned Ontario Horse Trials. Zara’s legacy of excellence in everything she did was the inspiration. Let’s have a great show season!” – Sabrina Haque (Zara’s mom)
The OEA has been working closely with the Zara Buren Memorial Foundation and the Buren/Haque Family since 2021 when the Zara Buren Memorial Award was established. We are extremely grateful for the opportunities that this Award has offered to some of our most talented and hard-working Junior members and, with the support of the Foundation, are very pleased to offer this new Legacy of Excellence initiative to our Juniors, who make up over a third of OEA’s membership and represent the future of Eventing in Ontario. There are two aspects to this initiative as follows:
1) Recognize and reward the top Junior at each sanctioned Ontario Horse Trial; and, 2) Furnish one set of Year-End ribbons for the top 6 Juniors across all divisions from EV85 to EV110m with prizes going to the top 3.
– To be eligible, a rider must be under the age of 18 as of January 1, 2024 and riding at the EV85 level or above.
– No registration is required.
– The top-placing Junior competitor will be identified for each Ontario HT using the final scores provided by the competition’s scorers. During the pilot phase, coefficients will be used to account for the potential for disproportionate effort, difficulty and commitment associated with riding at the Silver (EV100/EV105) and Gold (EV110) levels for Juniors. The proposed coefficients are: EV85: 1.0; EV90: .95; EV100: .90; EV105: .85; EV110: .80.
– The successful Junior at each Horse Trial will receive a white, embroidered, Ogilvy Jump Profile saddle pad provided by the Zara Buren Memorial Foundation. To encourage and reward as many Juniors as possible, there is a limit of one saddle pad per Junior during the season.
– At the Year-end, all OEA Juniors will be eligible for a Legacy of Excellence ribbon and prize. Ribbons will be provided to 6 th place and prizes to 3 rd . Year-end placings will be based on OEA Leaderboard points associated with a Junior’s top 4 finishes at sanctioned Ontario Horse Trials during the 2024 season.
For information please contact: info@ontarioeventing.ca
Comments