Outside the marquee was packed for the finale of the showjumping
The marquee was a sellout on showjumping day
Everyone knows that the Deloitte Australian International 3 Day Event is a great place to see some of the world’s best riders and horses in action but that is not the only reason to attend.
For a start, the host city of Adelaide is one of the most unique places to hold a 3 Day Event. The event takes place slap bang in the middle of the city parklands so it must come as a shock to the uninitiated to find horse accommodation appearing on the corner of one of Adelaide’s major thoroughfares. As one well-known and humorous competitors at the event aptly commented on Twitter “Kentucky has its Horse park, Burghley has its House and Adelaide has its roundabout”.
Not only is the city location unique, but Adelaide is usually warm and dry in November which is a bonus for those riders and spectators visiting from wetter and colder States. Attending the Australian International for Melbournites such as ourselves heralds the beginning of summer and is an absolute Must Do on our calendar. Call us boring but every year a group of us rent a great house within walking distance of the event (no, the location is secret), enjoy our first day having a very long, lazy lunch at a winery in one of the nearby famous wine growing areas and then spend three days watching the drama of the event unfold.
At least one day is spent in the main marquee, once again sampling good South Australian wines, eating good food (my, how the food at Australian events has changed in the past ten years; we’ve come a long way from pumpkin soup, sausages in a roll and cask wine thank God), catching up with old friends and making new ones.
Here are a few photos which captured some of the more glamorous side of this year’s Deloitte Australian International 3 Day Event plus video of the great French Horsemen team
