Ford Youth World

AQHA announces changes that will affect state qualifying for the 2012 Built Ford Tough AQHYA World Championship Show.

The American Quarter Horse Journal
February 14, 2012

The American Quarter Horse Association Executive Committee recently approved changes to the number of state entries an affiliate can nominate to the 2012 Built Ford Tough AQHYA World Championship Show, as well state qualifying hardship-case criteria for the show.

AQHA affiliates can approve up to six state entries in each class at the Ford Youth World. However, total affiliate entries still may not exceed 136; this does not include any national qualifiers for the show.

Additionally, changes have been made to the criteria for affiliate qualifying hardship cases and to the hardship application.

Effective for the 2012 Ford Youth World, hardships must be approved by using this system:
1). The hardship must be signed off by the youth adviser from the affiliate of residence and the youth adviser in which affiliate the youth wishes to hardship into.
2). The hardship must be received by AQHA by April 1 to ensure completeness.
3). The hardship document will be reviewed by the AQHA Hardship Task Force for approval.

The hardship will not be approved until the task force makes a decision on each case.

The following are situations where a hardship might be considered:

• Youth attending an out-of-state/province college and is unable to compete in his/her home affiliate’s shows
• Youth lives on the border of two states or provinces: It is more economical to show outside of the home state
• Trainer lives in another state and horse is boarded out of the youth’s home state

The Hardship Task Force is comprised of AQHA Youth Committee members who are not youth advisers. When handling the hardship applications, names of the youth, parents and trainer will be removed to avoid any biases, which is an approach many scholarship programs use.

The hardship application will be modified to allow youth advisers to provide more information to the Hardship Task Force in order to help make decisions on hardships.

It should be noted that hardships still do not affect entries in team penning and ranch sorting.

To complete a hardship application, click here.

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