Langley riders won five of 10 divisions at the Campbell Valley Equestrian Society (CVES) horse trials, held Aug 9-11 in the Langley park of the same name.
Campbell Valley Horse Trials 2024 are underway in Langley. It is one of the largest horse trials events in Western Canada, attracting up to 200 competitors each year. pic.twitter.com/FwBf2Rauub
— Langley Advance Times (@LangleyTimes) August 11, 2024
In the 110 (prelim level) division, Langley's Sabrina Glaser and Excalibur O'Donoghue took first, while in the 100 (training) division, Langley's Morgan Swaan and Queen Rathena won.
As well, Langley rider Dorothy Voute and Tycooly Fletcher were first in the 90 (pretraining) divisions.
The 77 (pre-entry) senior division was won by Langley's Sara Sellmer, riding Whiskey Talk, while Aldergrove's Hannah Veldman and Phoenix won the 69 (starter) junior competition.
In all, 146 riders competed in the annual event, one of the largest eventing competitions in Western Canada.
Organizer Diane Spencer said the Campbell Valley site is one of very few eventing sites in BC because of the space required.
"Campbell Valley is a very popular one," Spencer told the Langley Advance Times.
"We have entries coming all the way from Alberta and the United States, and of course, all throughout B.C.
CVES is a non-profit organization that is run by volunteers with all revenue generated going to the equestrian facilities at the Campbell Valley Regional Park.
The society built and maintains the riding ring, cross-country jumps and the corrals at the park under an agreement with Metro Vancouver Parks.
Beyond maintaining the facilities, CVES organizes dressage and cross-country schooling days, eventing schooling shows and the August horse trials, which require a lot of advance planning.
"We have a wonderful group of directors from the Campbell Valley Equestrian Society that all work together for many, many months [prior]," Spencer said.
"We actually start the year previous and then we call upon huge amounts of volunteers. "
Horse trials, also known as eventing, or combined training, requires a horse and rider to complete three different phases of competition, dressage, cross country jumping and stadium jumping.
As explained by the bceventing.ca website, dressage requires horse and rider to perform a series of movements in the correct order to demonstrate teamwork, while cross country is the speed and endurance phase of the competition, navigating a series of natural-looking obstacles within a set time frame, and the final phase, stadium jumping requires riders to cleanly jump a set course of fence rails.
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