A great view over Lakes Entrance
An Eventful Life is filming all competitors on cross country at the Randwick Equine Sydney Eventing Summer Classic 2019 – find out more here
We are on our way to the Randwick Equine Centre Sydney Eventing Summer Classic and this year we are taking a slightly different route from Melbourne to Sydney, enjoying a lazy meander up the coast road between the two big cities rather than just hurtling straight up in one 10 hour stretch
It has certainly been a lot more relaxing! Leaving an overcast Melbourne we headed into brilliant sunshine as we reached the coast and the lovely vista of Lakes Entrance, on the edge of Ninety Mile Beach where the Gippsland Lakes meets the Southern Ocean. It’s a stunning view from the top of the road down into the town of Lakes Entrance, popular with holiday makers, but we were aiming to get much further along the road to Sydney and spent Wednesday night at Bateman’s Bay (check out our Stories on Instagram and Facebook for our #roadtrip photos and videos and we'll be continuing them throughout the weekend with quick updates from SIEC)
This is another popular coastal spot but, to be honest, not on top of our ‘must-do again’ list but Sam’s Pizzeria on the waterfront looks like the place to eat; I say ‘looks like’ because, as we hadn’t made a booking, we missed out and had to opt for Indian food instead (still very good) but the pizzas at Sam’s looked great
We’re now in Kiama, a couple of hours further up the coast, and will easily make our destination at the Sydney International Equestrian Centre tomorrow to set up the tripods and get ready for the Sydney Eventing Summer Classic, with cross country starting on Saturday afternoon for the EvA95 and EvA60 classes
This will be our first event using the new star system but, as it is a national event rather than FEI, it will be CNC1*-S to CCN4*-S with a CCN3.5* thrown in just to confuse everyone!
Emma Mason and Warrego Marco Polo will be starting in the CNC4*
As always, there are plenty of big names having their season start here with Shane Rose, Hazel Shannon, Gemma Tinney, Emma Bishop and Emma Mason having a hit out in the CCN4*-S. Hazel will be riding the 2018 Aus3DE winner Willinga Park Clifford and, although Cooley SRS has arrived in the country, he is not on the start list so is obviously just being slowly acclimatised Down Under before starting competition. Talking of Down Under, Tim Boland’s Cooley Down Under, another horse competed by Oliver Townend in the UK in 2018 is in the CCN2*-S while Tim is riding Napoleon in the 4* and Menlo Park in the 3*
While last year was a scorcher for this event, the weather gods are being kinder and we’re looking forward to a temperature in the mid-20’s with a few possible showers on both days. Sydney has had a lot of rain so far this year so we’re hoping to see some verdant pastures and great going for the horses at SIEC, always a great venue to visit with the added bonus of its Sydney 2000 Olympic heritage
We’ll leave you a little taste of what is to come on course this weekend but, hopefully with a little less dust. Here’s Jade Findlay, winner of the 2018 Anna Savage Award and Oaks Cordelia, her 2018 Melbourne International CCI3* winner, having a great run around last year’s 3* (now 4* course - I told you it was going to be confusing for the first few events!). Jade and Oaks Cordelia will be starting in the 4* class this year and will be ones to watch …..
