The Australian born 2014 World Equestrian Games dressage silver medallist Gareth Hughes was on hand at the Australian International 3 Day Event to watch the dressage phase of this important event for Australian team selection for Rio.
As the Australian High Performance eventing dressage coach, Gareth has plenty of exposure to the riders in the UK at clinics and competitions (listen to Gareth’s wrap-up of the dressage at Burghley for us here) and has had plenty of involvement with Australian based riders at clinics but this was the first time he had seen them in a competition environment
Gareth talks about the pressure for these elite riders competing at the only 4* in the Southern Hemisphere, the importance of horsepower and the need to compete against people as good or better than yourself
He may be based in the UK but Gareth knows that the Australian based riders have proved time and time again that they can make the team from this side of the world and do well.
“Can it be done from here? Absolutely. Is it easy? No” he says, adding “But sometimes doing not as well as expected, for the really good guys, means they bounce back up from it and sometimes that’s needed as well .....”
Gareth Hughes
Read our Friday dressage day report here
