EWA's Concerns Regarding EA Awards

EWA would like to congratulate all of the Equestrian Australia (EA) Award nominees, especially the WA representatives, and encourages all members to support them by voting here.

We have, however, recently come to question the validity of the categories of Domestic Athlete of the Year and Domestic Horse of the Year as they appear to exclude the representation of Show Horse athletes and horses.

Upon querying the non-inclusion of Show Horse athletes and horses with EA, we were advised that the nominees are only selected for these Awards from Sports recognised by the FEI. This is not stated in the EA Awards Policy and the non-inclusion of EA Show Horse members is not supported by EWA. We believe that members from all of the EA Sports should receive equal access to the Award categories.

We were proud to present our own 2017 EWA Athlete of the Year Award to a Show Horse athlete, which was supported by all of our State Sport Committees. It could be said that Show Horse is the only true EA Sport as it is homegrown and unique to Australia and EWA is therefore committed to addressing this matter for future EA Awards.