The first and last fence will no longer be in the Main Arena at the Australian International 3 Day Event
An Eventful Life is filming all competitors on cross country at
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“The parklands are looking fabulous” Belinda Lindh, Event Director for the Australian International 3 Day Event tells me as we chat about the forthcoming big event in Adelaide “The cross country will be great for horses and spectators”
It has been a real drought year for many rural areas of Australia, where most eventing competitions take place, but one of the advantages of organising an event that runs through the centre of Adelaide is the ongoing work done on the ground in the East Parklands by Adelaide City council
There are to be some changes to the actual cross country course designed by Mike Etherington-Smith and we’ll bring you more about those nearer the date but the first change that everyone will see on arrival is that overall layout is slightly different
The main arena in front of the Heritage Grandstand remains in its usual place but this year it will not be the venue for the Start and Finish of the cross country. Instead the riders will leave from the area where, in previous years, the stabling was located before heading into the Main Arena and out towards the parklands
“The course is almost reversed this year” explains Belinda “The previous stabling location had reached its maximum space in that location and we really want to expand the numbers of horses able to be stabled here for competition. The council were also keen to see the stabling area moved away from its proximity to the main road, so we decided to move the stabling complex to the ‘pits area’ in the large space available at the back of the administrative area and the VIP marquee”
We’ve all heard of a pit stop in car racing and the ‘pits’ refers to the facility previously used when a different sort of horsepower used to roar through the parklands in the Formula One Grand Prix and they are still used each year for the Adelaide 500 motor racing, another big event held in the Adelaide parklands
“It’s the perfect spot for stabling as it provides a hard-base area and is fully equipped with plumbing and electricity”
The new stabling location also enables the new Start/Finish and course reversal which will make for an exciting change to cross country this year although no doubt the water complex at Rymill Lake will be once again the most popular place to be on Saturday. Plans and approval for another water complex to be added to the course are still in place but unfortunately we won’t be seeing it in play this year as sponsorship funds are still needed to for the construction so fingers crossed for next year
Stay tuned for more about what is coming up in Adelaide and here's a reminder of how the previous course layout looked with last year's CCI4* winner Hazel Shannon
