Evan Phinney, Sacred Heart Class of 2012
Between school,
equestrian competitions and a part-time job, Acadia student Evan Phinney is
adding is finding time to spend at her hobby, sports photography.
By John DeCoste
Not all the
student-athletes attending Acadia are part of a varsity team. Take 19-year-old Evan Phinney, a second-year
student making a name for herself as an equestrienne. The show-jumping business student recently
received Horse-Canada Horse-Sport Young Riders Scholarship, valued at $5,000.
This wasn’t the first
award she has received for her riding. “I received a Jump Canada bursary in
2011, and a Nova Scotia Equestrian Federation (NSEF) bursary in 2012” - the
year she graduated from Sacred Heart School in Halifax. The Halifax woman has been riding almost as
long as she can remember. She attended
riding camps as a small girl, but her career began in earnest at age seven when
she joined the Halifax Junior Bengal Lancers.
“My cousin gave me a ‘Barbie horse’,” Phinney said. Since then, I always wanted to ride horses,
but Lancers was where I started getting serious about it.”
As a member of the
Lancers, she learned to ride, acquired horse experience, worked in the stables
and competed in hunter/jumper classes. She
also participated in the Junior Musical Ride, where she spent seven years and
eventually became one of four ride formation leaders. Evan’s competitive show-jumping career began
while she was still with the Lancers. “I
had the honour to train and show the Lancer horse Wonderland.” The partnership “evolved from barely being
able to canter or halt at in-barn training shows” to competing at the Winter
Equestrian Festival in Florida, where they placed sixth out of 59 entries.
Over the past three
years, Phinney has competed extensively in provincial, regional, national and
even international events and enjoying her share of success. “I like the adrenalin rush you get in
competition. I like spending time with
the horses, and learning to keep and maintain them is an added bonus,” she said
about the sport. Show jumping, she
added, “is like any other team sport, except your teammate is a horse.” Phinney was a member of the Nova Scotia team
at the Canadian Interprovincial Equestrian Championship the past two years. In
2012, the team was second at nationals, and she placed second individually.
This past year, her team placed third.
After leasing or
renting horses for several years, Phinney recently purchased her own horse,
Bling. The pair train at Medford Meadows
near Canning under the coaching of Jennifer Sarsfield. After high school, Evan applied to a number
of college programs in the United States and received a number of offers from
NCAA equestrian teams. However, she
decided to stay in Nova Scotia and chose Acadia
She follows in her
father’s footsteps with the choice. Bruce
Phinney grew up in Kentville, attended Acadia, is a former president of the
Acadia Alumni Association and a current member of the Acadia Board of
Governors. Evan’s grandfather, the late Wendell Phinney, was a well-known
Kentville businessman for many years as well as Mayor of the town from 1973 to
1988. “It was a tough decision, but the
fact that my horse was 20 minutes away helped make up my mind,” she said of
choosing the Wolfville university. Managing
riding and studying is busy, she said. “But because I love it, it motivates me
to ride even on full days. I try to get out a minimum of four days a week. “I don’t think I’m Olympic material, though
that would be nice. I would like to step up my game, and solidify my technique
to become a better competitor.” She
plans to keep up her juggling act, including with the Acadia Equestrian Team
club and her hobby of sports photography as Phinney Photography - contributing
to Acadia Athletics and campus publications - while working on her riding. “I’m having fun,” Phinney said, “and I
wouldn’t have it any other way. It makes it entertaining, for sure, never a
dull moment.”
