2024 Year in Review
A heartfelt THANK YOU to all our entire equestrian community for making 2024 truly unforgettable! Your hard work, perseverance, and love for the sport have shone brightly in arenas across the country and around the globe. Let’s celebrate the victories, challenges conquered and the friendships forged.
Here’s to late nights at the barn, early morning rides, and the shared joy of every success. Here are a few things we are particularly proud of at EC. We are thankful for the help of many amazing and talented people who have made these achievements possible.
On behalf of all of us, we wish you and your families Happy Holidays, may you have a peaceful holiday and all the very best for the year ahead.
2024 Highlights:
For the first time since 2000 (24 years), Canada qualified all three Olympic teams and one Paralympic team to compete for Canada in Paris 2024.
EC had a goal to have four disciplines with EC National rankings and championships by 2025. Achieving this required building the IT, working with committees to frame the criteria, launching a pilot year and then a full launch with connection to the rankings. In 2024, Dressage and Eventing were added to join Hunter/Jumper in the National Rankings and Championships and the fourth discipline is now in the works.
Our national commitment to pursue NCCP licensed and certified coaching as a profession in our sport continues to hit our annual targets. The program launched in 2018, with a target to have all coaches licensed and certified by 2025. In November, we crossed the threshold of 1900 coaches, meeting our annual target.
We had a target to achieve 50 new U50 officials by 2025. As of November, we have 65 new officials in this demographic who have joined officiating in equestrian sport.
We had an ongoing goal of increasing FEI 1* and 2* events in Canada by 15% by 2025. Currently we are showing an overall 38% average increase in 2025 FEI competitions over 2024.
- Eventing (CCI1*, CCI2*-L, CCI2*-S) 50% increase
- Dressage (CDI1*, CDI2*) 12% increase
- Para Dressage (CPEDI1*, CPEDI2*) 80% increase
- Jumping (CSI2*) 33% increase
We launched the Canadian Horse Identification Program (CHIP) in November, with EC as the administrator of the first-ever ‘124-000’ country-coded equine microchip supported by a national centralized database and registry.
We have engaged partners to help us assess and improve our sport’s culture, increase equity, diversity and inclusion in leadership and revise policies with an inclusive lens. The first step was to attain $100,000 in grants specifically for these initiatives, and now the projects are underway.
We hired passionate and experienced staff dedicated to engagement and revenue generation. We announced the launch of the High-Performance Legacy Fund at the Royal Winter Fair, and the team is gearing up to start their fundraising campaigns and support three Red & White fundraisers this winter. Details coming soon!
In collaboration with the national eventing committee, Provincial Horse Trials Associations and Provincial/Territorial Sport Organizations, we launched the ICE initiative (I Can Event), a national eventing program with provincially sanctioned ICE events. Early indication shows strong participation numbers in the provinces that piloted the program, boosting participation in the grassroots!
Congratulations all! We are so proud of our Canadian equestrians both here at home and around the world. Thank you all for your support of the sport, and your love of horses. We are grateful to represent you and your animals on a national and international stage. Here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2025 and many moments doing what we love with our horses.
Meg Krueger
CEO
ceo@equestrian.ca