An Eventful Life is filming all competitors on cross country at
Mitsubishi Motors Australian International 3 Day Event - find out more here
The eventing trucks (lorries to the English people reading this) will be rolling into Adelaide from all around Australia when the Event Secretary’s office opens in the parklands in the centre of the city and we will be watching the first horse inspection in front of the Heritage Grandstand at the Australian International 3 Day Event in exactly two weeks’ time
The South Australian jacarandas will be in bloom, the new layout will be ready for the week’s activities and hopefully the sun will be shining as the competitors present their horses to the Ground Jury which will be comprised of Britain’s Sue Baxter (President), New Zealand’s Helen Christie and the USA’s Robert Stevenson
The cross country course designer for the CCI5* is of course Mike Etherington-Smith, who seems to be very busy designing courses in Australia at the moment, while Sylvia Roberts is designing the CCI4*-S course and Mick Pineo is taking care of the CCI3*-L
The role of a technical delegate (TD) at these big events is an interesting one, as Australia’s Michelle Debenham told us in our chat at Hartpury earlier this year, and two Australians hold the positions this year with Geoff Sinclair acting as TD for the CCI5* and CCI4*-S and South Australia’s Tracey Leigh overseeing the CCI3*-L
Chief Steward, Chris Wallace heads up a team of friendly and experienced Australian stewards (Caroline Jones, Doris Riddett, Bronwyn Gillot, Shylie McFetridge, Penny Dodd and Lindy Young), many of whom we bump into at events around the world and they are joined by visiting stewards Susan Geddes (NZL) and Eileen Pritchard-Bryan (USA),
It isn’t just eventing competitions that are held at the Mitsubishi Motors International 3 Day Event as the ATCO World Cup Qualifier Jumping is also a big draw card, taking place in the lunch break on Sunday. The course designer for both the World Cup and the eventing show jumping is John Vallance, who designs some challenging courses for the eventing horses on the final day of competition in the main arena
But it all kicks off with the trot-up on Wednesday 13th November and we’ll see you there, all frocked up and ready to go ……
