An Eventful Life is filming all competitors on cross country at the
Puhinui International Horse Trials - find out more here
Some may say that the first horse inspection of a 3 Day Event is the first phase, but today at Puhinui International Horse Trials the first phase consisted of getting into the venue.
The weather in Auckland at this time of year can be variable, from glorious sunshine to pouring rain, and a wild week of wet weather and thunderstorms has left the Puhinui Reserve looking beautifully green but a tad wet underfoot. Today the trucks lined up to be towed into the Reserve on the edge of Manukau Harbour and, while drivers waited patiently behind the wheel for their turn with the tractor, riders and grooms unloaded the horses and walked them the rest of the way to the stabling area.
If the sun was out, they meandered leisurely up the path, letting the horses having a pick of grass on the way up whilst others rapidly changed pace as a passing cloud suddenly dumped its contents on them and the flapping flags gave the horses some extra impetus (not always welcomed by those trying to hang on to the end of the leadrope)
The good news is that the weather is slowly settling down ahead of a fine weekend so, while it has made final preparations more difficult and it was a bit of a soggy start, things are looking good for cross country and show jumping days
A new course for Ewan Kellett
New Zealand’s Tich Massey has been the cross country course designer here for several years but, with Tich taking a sabbatical, Australia’s Ewan Kellett stepped in at fairly late notice for his first design at the very scenic Puhinui. Ewan is designing the CCI3* and CCI2* courses and has only had since mid-October to get up to speed so he is excited about the new role but has been battling the elements in the past few days
“The heavens opened on Sunday night, it rained all day Monday, I got up early on Tuesday morning ready to hit the ground running and within an hour I was down at the café drinking coffee because we couldn’t do anything here. The rain was so torrential, they closed the airport so we’ve playing catch up since then” (watch our full video interview with Ewan here)
Summer dresses were matched with mud spattered legs
Once the trucks were in, the Riders’ Briefing took place and the 2*/3* riders were given the option of the first horse inspection taking place that afternoon as scheduled or at 7:30am the next day, in view of the forecast rain for the afternoon.
Eventers being eventers, they opted to trot up in the rain, bless them. Luckily the heavy rain didn’t eventuate but it was cold, showery and blowy, leaving many riders in a quandary about their outfits. Some braved the weather in their planned summer clothes, doing last minute changes before strutting their stuff and others just opted to be practical
As at Melbourne International, Puhinui runs two trot up lanes which creates havoc for photographers and journalists who are constantly wondering what they missed and, although I can tell you that non-one was held or spun the 3*, I have no idea what eventuated in the other classes!
But from what we did see, here are some of our favourite 'looks'
Tariq Yousef, who is riding in the CCN95 and CCN105, looked fabulous in his pale blue suit
Nick Brooks always catches the eye at trot-ups, this time in braces and bowtie, but he must have been cursing the choice of shorts
Transformation. Jackson Bovill made a quick change to go from this to this …….
Dannie Lodder went for her usual summery short dress and the weather gods decided to send some rays of sunshine
We loved Larissa Srhoy's horse print dress and the immaculately turned out Rockquest
Dannie Wheeler's floral top, great hat and colourful earrings were a hit (and how white is CP Aurelio!)
