Katie Taliana and Trevalgar II at Melbourne International 3DE 2017
Baxter Boots CIC3*
Ladies dominate the Baxter Boots CIC3* at Goulburn after today’s dressage phase with several well known eventing dressage divas topping the board!
The top eight in this class of 36 competitors are all female and seven of them produced sub-50 scores today with Katie Taliana and Trevalgar II leading the pack on a score of 42.50. It is then a tight fought match with Megan Jones on Kirby Park Impress on 45 and Alex Townsend on Parodie tied in equal third place with last year’s CCI4* winner in Adelaide, Hazel Shannon and Clifford on a score of 45.10
In fifth (46.20) is Emma Bishop, who will be cursing her error of course on CP Issey Miyake which cost her a couple of places while Amanda Ross on Koko Popping Candy (and finally the name is right!) takes sixth place on 48.20
So it is tight at the top heading into tomorrow morning’s show jumping before the cross country phase later in the day. Two of the 36 starters won’t be moving forward to those phases however with both Stuart Tinney on War Hawk and Will Enzinger on Britannica MVNZ retiring during their dressage tests
Willinga Park CIC2*
Stuart had more luck in the 2* class in third place after the dressage on Wanda with a score of 46.60 behind Megan Jones in second place on Kirby Park Invader (44.50) and the leader of this phase, Emma Mason on Justine Streater's Warrego Marco Polo (46.60)
The results after the show jumping phase aren’t to hand yet but reports are that there were plenty of poles falling in this class on a track that needed some forward riding and that caught a few out – we’ll see how that changes the leader board when the results become available
Coprice CIC1*
Grace Kay and Celerity Park Faberge lead on a score of 34.40 after dressage and showjumping, adding just two time faults to their dressage score from this morning. Grace and the 10 year old chestnut won the CCI1* at Melbourne International 3 Day Event but they have the very experienced Amanda Ross coming up behind them on the less experienced Don Diablo (maybe even at his first 1* start?) on their dressage score of 39.90
Claire McDermott riding Klydoscope is not far behind them on 40.90 and Wendy Schaeffer- Macdonald, over from the UK (no doubt heading to the Aus3DE in Adelaide in a few weeks), is in fourth place (43.40) riding Canterbury Sun Rose. Two time penalties in the show jumping seems to have been the thing today with Emma Mason in fifth place (44.10) on Aramatai Fox and Steph Bender riding Pluto Mio in sixth place (44.20) both adding them to their dressage scores and unfortunately Emma also rolled a rail, dropping her from second place
Pluto Mio, past Olympic and WEG mount for Stuart Tinney but now retired from 4* level, will no doubt eat up the CIC1* cross country course tomorrow – lucky girl Steph Bender who recently took over the lease on the Tinney Eventing property and the ride on the big grey owned by John and Jane Pittard
A few years ago it snowed at Goulburn during this event and, although it wasn’t quite that bad today, it was certainly chilly - about 10 degrees - and overcast. Tomorrow the cross country should get everyone warmed up .............
We'll bring another quick update tomorrow and our full report from Goulburn coming up next week
Wrap up warm! Jess and Ali Malcolm from Fitzroy Falls check out the course with Jess riding this weekend in the EvA105A and Ali helping her
