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Ranch Horse Champion Criteria

REWARDING ACHIEVEMENT

NVRHA places much emphasis on the fun associated with not only achieving, but celebrating success. Two award systems are used, one based on skill levels (Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced) in the form of year end awards and a second based on “level of achievement” where all horse/rider teams are compared against a “standard of excellence” (Ranch Horse Champion Awards).

Year End Awards

The unique NVRHA Scoring System provides the opportunity to recognize superior achievement at all skill levels—Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced Amateur Riders as well as Novice and Advanced Youth. After Rider and Horse Teams are assigned to a Division, they remain in that Division all year. Their scores are tracked by NVRHA and year-end awards are presented to the rider/horse team with the highest scores at the September NVRHA National Finals held in Colorado Springs. State Affiliates often use these points for Year End State High Point Awards.

Placement Points

Placement Points are used to determine the High Point all around Horse/Rider Team within each Division, at each event, and form the basis for Year End Division Awards. A Horse/Rider Team must participate in all five classes (Ranch Cutting, Working Ranch Horse, Ranch Trail, Ranch Riding and Ranch Conformation ), within each Division (Advanced, Intermediate, and Novice Amateur Divisions and Youth if held). See our Rules & Regulations for current and complete details). The placements points earned in each of the five classes and are totaled for the TOTAL EVENT SCORE. The highest TOTAL EVENT SCORE for a team determines the TOTAL YEAR SCORE. This TOTAL YEAR SCORE is compared to other rider/horse teams in each Division to determine the year-end award winner.

NVRHA Champion Awards

In addition to Year End awards, the NVRHA recognizes “Level of Achievement” of rider/horse teams. For this award, the Run Scores from each rider/horse team for each of the five classes from all Divisions are ranked high to low. The top score receives points based on the total number of rider/horse teams competing (all divisions).

Example: For the Ranch Cutting class at an event, Run Scores were as follows:

Points are awarded in accordance with our Point System—one point for each five horses competing. In this example Bar Doc would receive one Ranch Cutting point and Peppy Badger would receive ½ point. Larger classes would be awarded more points. Had there been ten horses, the winner would have received 2 points, 2nd place 1 point, and 3rd place ½ point.

NVRHA Ranch Horse Champion

Rider/horse teams attaining five points in all five classes (Ranch Cutting, Working Ranch Horse, Ranch Trail, Ranch Riding, and Ranch Conformation) earn this award. Over the past years, approximately forty-five Ranch Horse Champions have been presented.

NVRHA Supreme Ranch Horse Champion

Criteria for this award is the same as the Ranch Horse Champion, except, a total of ten points must be earned in each of the five classes. Approximately twenty Supreme Champions have been made over the past several years.

NVRHA Ranch Horse Performance Champion

The intent of this award is to recognize those horses that may never achieve ten points in conformation. Once a rider/horse team receives ten points in each performance class (Ranch Cutting, Working Ranch Horse, Ranch Trail and Ranch Riding) the rider/horse team is presented this award. This award and the Supreme Ranch Horse Award will not be given to the same rider/horse combination in the same year. Instead the higher (Supreme) of the two awards will be given.

NVRHA Superior Champion

A Minimum of 40 NVRHA Championship Points are required to earn this award. The award may be earned in each of the five classes. The award will be retroactive to the beginning of NVRHA.

Please refer to the official NVRHA Rules and Regulations for detailed explanations of all Scoring/Awards.