Fairfield, CT - The Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) has announced a realigning of its National Zones, compressing nine Zones into eight, and reflecting several new changes. In brief:

* Former Zone 7 was absorbed into Zones 8 and 5
* Zone 9 was renamed Zone 7
* New regions were created in Zones 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 (former Zone 9)
* Zone 1 sent a region to Zone 2
* Zone 2 shifted a region to Zone 3
* Zone 3 lost two regions - one to Zone 4 and another to Zone 6
* Zone 4 shifted a region to Zone 5
* Zone 5 moved a region to Zone 7
* Canadian zone assignments (Ontario and British Colombia) remain unchanged.

“Zone Nine didn’t go away, Zone Seven just got bigger,” said Jerry Steinmetz, Purdue University IHSA equestrian team coach and chair of the Realignment Committee. “We had a big zone to begin with.”

Whereas Zone 9 prior to realignment encompassed the central and northern Midwest states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota and Wisconsin), the realigned Zone 7 extends from Canada to Texas (excepting Nebraska and a western portion of Kansas, now in Zone 8).

Steinmetz noted that the new Zone has teams an hour from the Canadian border all the way south to Corpus Christi, TX: “It will be harder to get to Nationals, with five Regions now in our Zone, and only two get to go. We’ll just have to see how it goes. I have had huge interest in the team from this year’s freshmen. Forty-eight riders applied for the team, and I could only take 40. I don’t know what,” he said, “to do with them all.”

Rutgers University coach and Zone 3 Chair, Kelly Francfort, also has seen revisions, with portions of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia now aligned to compete in Zones 4 and 6: “With the realignment, the regions are a little smaller, which we are hoping to allow for more riders to participate in the horse shows. Additionally, we have had a geographic shift, and will be welcoming a new region into our Zone Finals. The fact that returning riders in our Zone will be riding against new faces at the Zone Finals is spurring them to raise their game.”

“Speaking on behalf of the Realignment Committee, that has been working on this issue for the past five years, we first identified the goals for realignment,” cited Jim Arrigon, Xavier University coach and IHSA National Secretary. These goals were:

1. Provide a fairer route to IHSA Nationals for riders and teams, by balancing enrollment. No Region/Zone should have dramatically more competition than the others.
2. Ease pressure on over-crowded areas in Zones 1, 2 and 3
3. Ease pressure on the Nationals Horse Committee by requiring fewer horses at the championships
4. Address the void left in the old Zone 7 when several teams left IHSA for NCAA
5. Reduce the size of regions to allow for more riding opportunities for members and to allow for future growth, particularly in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions
6. Shift membership to create Zones more equal in Hunter Seat and combined membership figures.

“We restructured the committee to include the Zone Directors, because we saw the need to create new Regions within Zones,” Arrigon continued. “The new Regions in Zones One, Two and Three required a shift of Regions south and west which, in the end, impacted all Zones. We dismantled Zone Seven and absorbed it into Zones Eight and Nine. Then Zone Nine became the ‘new’ Zone Seven. We also restructured the Cacchione Cup class to include fewer rides at Nationals.”

“I am in Zone Six, and am looking forward to our Zone Finals, as we will now have five Regions competing,” said Miami University (Ohio) Coach and Zone Chair Lori Cramer. “A few years ago, Zone Six had three Regions, and then we divided and created a fourth Region within our boundaries, which created additional opportunities for riders and new schools.

Cramer added, “As the Zone Six Chair, I am excited to have a fifth Region, as it brings diversity to the area, and additional coaches/Regional Chairs to learn from, as well as creating a larger, even more competitive Zone Six Finals and opening the door for new host sites.”

“The result of the committee’s diligence,” said Francfort, “is that IHSA has created six new Regions to allow for future growth in over-populated areas and has increased the showing opportunities for members. Zones are now more balanced, in terms of hunter seat and combined members. No longer are there Zones with more than a thousand members. This alone, without taking further action, helps reduce the size of the Nationals and allows us to present a more equitable and manageable championship.”

The IHSA began in 1967 out of a series of informal competitions among northeast institutions Bennett College, C.W. Post, Fairleigh Dickinson, Jersey City State, and Stony Brook. Its first reorganization of member colleges, into two Regions for competitive accessibility, was in 1972-73. Region 1 reflected New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Metro New York; Region 2 welcomed upstate New York. Today, the IHSA represents more than 370 colleges and universities, and more than 8,700 student riders in the United States and Canada.

For more information about the IHSA, or starting your own team, please visit www.ihsainc.com. Follow the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association on Facebook, and Twitter, @IHSAinc, as Region and Zone Finals start the road to Lexington, Kentucky for the May 2011 IHSA National Championships.

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