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The early leader Eleanor Osborne and Highborn Rocker (above) finished the day in third place while Christine Bates and Kung Fu Panda (below) lead the CCI2* field
Queensland’s Eleanor Osborne led the CCI2* dressage for much of the Thursday morning session with a score of 49.40 riding Highborne Rocker but just before the lunch break Christine Bates riding Kung Fu Panda moved into the lead and stayed there for the rest of the day
Christine has two horses in the 2* with her second mount Jimmy O’Reilly scheduled to do his dressage test tomorrow but she was delighted with Kung Fu Panda performing what she believes was his best test to date (even if she feels that the score may not reflect that!)
Christine Bates
The first rider after the lunch break was Emily Gray all the way from Western Australia and one of the WA Young Rider team. Emily’s horse Jocular Vision certainly was in a jocular mood and found many things in the Adelaide arena to focus on rather than his rider! The next combination Kirsty Douglas and Cushavon Crackerjack also had a little spook at the man-eating tree decorations but at the moment Kirsty is willing to forgive the 10 year old grey Irish Sport Horse anything as he has just come back to competition after a serious eye injury. Since puncturing his eye ball in March ‘Pudding’ as he is known at home has had two surgeries and spent eight weeks at the vet so, although the original plan was to compete him here at 4*here, he has returned at 2* level instead
“I’m just so happy to be back on him” says Kirsty “There was a chance he could lose his eye – he pulled the iris completely out but the eye specialist has done amazing things. I’m just so happy to be able to bring him back to Adelaide”
Not only were they back competing but they were also back with a good score of 51.30 which left them in provisional fourth place at the end of the day. And, despite having lost some time in their preparation, Kirsty is hopeful that Pudding will do a good cross country round, having jumped clear around the 2* course in 2012 when they were third “He’s such a good jumper and he loves it so I’m really looking forward to the cross country”
Megan Jones on her second ride of the day, Kirby Park Invader (above), was likely to be the biggest threat to Christine’s lead and she came very close but the score of 48.50 was one point shy of Christine’s score. Megan also came very close to running out of time on her entry into the arena, leaving some of us holding our breath but she squeezed in by a whisker.
Another local hero is also home and competing here in the CCI2* - Wendy Schaeffer. Wendy put in a last minute application to ride in the CCI4* but some discrepancies with FEI rulings meant that it was not meant to be this year. Wendy and Sun Showers (above) will now tackle the CCI2* course on Saturday and are in a very handy position in fifth place on a score of 53.70.
Rounding out the top 10 are Nikki Richardson riding the NSW CIC2* Champion Rudolf in sixth place , Victorians Nina Clarke riding LP Boudin and Emily McQueen riding King’s Sun in seventh and tenth places and two young Queenslanders Isabel English riding Grand Andi and Sheridan Sullivan riding Talent Thyme in ninth place.
Nikki Richardson riding Rudolf (above) and Nina Clarke riding LP Boudin (below)
Tomorrow morning both Christine and Megan have the opportunity to better their scores on other horses as part of the final 16 riders in the CCI2*. Following this Dirk Schrade will conduct the Dressage Masterclass in the main arena before the CCI4* dressage gets underway so there’s plenty coming up including, thankfully, a cool change!
