College Riding Canadian Style: Opportunities to Ride During Your Canadian College Experience

Are you an equestrian from ”The Great White North” thinking about riding in college? Canada offers a handful of colleges with 2 year diploma or certificate equine programs, as well as 4 year universities with riding teams. Whether you are looking to go to school to be a horse trainer, veterinarian, farrier or just want to be on the riding team, there are schools that will fit your needs.

After researching Canadian colleges, we have found that there are Equine Studies programs in just about every province. Also, most of these schools have their own riding teams. For example, Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia have their own equine program with both hunt seat and western teams which show in the Atlantic University Equestrian League. The University of Guelph also have their own program, as well as a team showing in the Ontario University Equestrian Association.

Didn’t know that there are associations like the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association in Canada? Neither did we! Canadian schools show in the OUEA, AIEL, as well as the IHSA.

OUEA- Ontario University Equestrian League; Started in 2007 with only 7 schools, currently have 16 schools across Ontario and Quebec who are involved. These schools have divided the organization into East and West Zones to allow each school to be able to send more riders to shows throughout the season. The OUEA is entirely run by students and relies on kind donations to keep them running. Several students from various member universities come together to make up the OUEA Executive Team, and are responsible for the organization’s overall management. Each show is run by member teams, and the majority of teams host at least one show per season.

AIEL- Atlantic Intercollegiate Equestrian League; Involved in this league are universities; teams, clubs and equestrian societies. Currently, this league includes five schools from Nova Scotia; Saint Mary’s University, Acadia University, Dalhousie University, St. Francis Xavier University and Dalhousie Agricultural Campus.

IHSA- Intercollegiate Horse Show Association; A handful of Canadian colleges show in zones and regions against US colleges in New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota.

If you live in Canada and are interested in attending college for an equine studies program or want to ride on an equestrian team while attending university, one of these school may be right for you!

If you ride for one of these teams we would love to hear from you… send us pictures and tell us about your experiences.