So You Want to Horse Show in Canada

 Showing at one of the major west coast venues has been a bucket list item for years. The most realistic choice of venue for me in Oregon is Tbird, which is about a 7 hour drive away, but in Canada, vs Thermal which is a 20 hour drive. Trainer M's program usually goes once or twice a year to Tbird so I put us down on the list to go this year. 

Scoping out our arena for the week

Tbird entries open about three months before the shows and its a bloodbath trying to get in. Originally we were planning on going in May, sent our entries in an hour after they opened in February, but were put on the waitlist. We scratched May and tried for August and it was worse. The show sold out in under five minutes, but we managed to get two out of eight horses in.  Trainer M was persistent and called the show office multiple times in the months between, but it wasn't until about three weeks before the show that we actually got all the horses in. The two horses that were accepted both had minor injuries and scratched, so we were able to swap them out, and then a few others dropped out for various reasons, so we ended up only taking four horses. Thankfully we were able to find a decent Airbnb at the last minute, but it was a bit stressful waiting to see if we got in or not. 

loading up and heading out

I'm so thankful to be in a program that has gone up to Tbird for a few years and knew exactly what forms and documents we needed to cross the border. All the horses had their Coggins done in the spring, and the week before leaving we had the vet out for their vet checks and to get copies of vaccine records. Tbird itself requires a signed vet certificate which Trainer M had for all the horses. All I had to do was sign as owner on the copies. 

For the border crossing itself, we had to fill out a Canadian temporary admission permit, which basically states that the "goods" you're importing are just in Canada temporarily so you don't have to pay import tariffs on them. And god only knows what the tariffs are on any given day with this presidential administration. The only problem with this form is that the importer/owner has to be present when crossing the border with the horse into Canada. The US doesn't care when they cross back. There's different forms if you're sending your horse with a commercial hauler and/or you won't be present as they cross the border. And I think in those instances you might have to put money down that you'll get back once the horse go back to the US. Trainer M again had multiple copies for each horse and all I had to do was sign them.

The border is fairly empty when crossing at 10pm on a Sunday night

We also had to sign up for an Equestrian Canada membership. They have a reciprocal program with USEF, so our basic membership was free and we became authorized foreign competitors. If we wanted to get EC points we could pay for an actual membership. We were also required to do the EC version of Safe Sport and a concussion awareness training. Thankfully both were fairly easy to do online and took less than an hour. And the training is good for two years, so if I go back next year I won't have to renew my training. Ahem US Safe Sport.

Last but certainly not least, everyone has to have a passport and BRING the passport with them. We were literally opening the trailer doors to start loading horses when Trainer M realized she had left her passport at home. Thankfully, her house was just a mile off the freeway in the direction we were going, so she called her fiancé and I swung by their house to pick it up since I was driving my car and she was hauling the horses and the trailer wouldn't fit on her street.