The winning Australian Young Rider team in 2017
Three Australian teams will be heading across the Tasman in May for the Oceania Eventing Championships being held as part of the National 3 Day Event at Taupo in New Zealand from May 10th – 12th 2019
The biennial Oceania clash last took place in Melbourne in 2017 and both countries see the Championships as a great opportunity to test their high-performance programmes and enable their riders, grooms and support crews to gain experience at an international teams event
According to the ESNZ website, Australian will taking three teams of riders with their own horses to New Zealand in May with two senior teams to compete at (current) CCI3* and a young rider team to compete at (current) CCI2* level also.
“This has been nearly six months in the making and been driven by both Australian and New Zealand high performance programmes” says ESNZ Eventing sport manager Eliza Johns “It gives a whole group of riders the benefit of competing as a team in the new Olympic format. It is an exciting step for the sport in this part of the world and for the Oceania teams’ event which is a highlight on the Australasian calendar.”
It is the first time so many teams will be taking part in the Challenge and will give both countries the best possible chance to test the new Olympic Games format whereby the teams comprise four combinations but just three are nominated at the start, with the fourth competing as an individual. In the event of a substitution, the fourth combination will inherit the score of the combination being substituted however, will also carry their own score for the individual competition.
The 2018 Strzegom Horse Trials in Poland ran the first event under the new rules in 2018 for the Nations Cup competition.
Watch our video round-up of the Oceania Challenge 2017 HERE
