The day begins with plaiting up
Where dressage took place today hooves will thunder past tomorrow over Vince Roche’s course. Technical Delegate, Darryl Burgess, (pictured above) said he was pleased with how the course was looking: “The course has got more of a flow to it this year. The start has been moved and the CIC3* haven’t got as many jumping efforts towards the end of the course as they have done in the past – and that’s a good thing.”
The wooden fenced show jumping arena (below) gave competitors a lovely surface to ride on but it has taken the committee a lot of work to get it to that stage. “I think the surface is really good now,” said Vince. “We have put down inches of sand, sawdust and stable manure over the past few years and are now the horses can really reap the rewards of that work.”
Prue Barrett leads the field in the Prydes Feed Preliminary Div A, while Alexandra Frail and Avedon Ambition leads the Ranvet Preliminary Div B. Alexandra performed a lovely test which earned them a score of 36 and even two rails down in the show jumping still left them nearly eight marks ahead of second placed Alyssa Houston. The Main Event Photography Preliminary junior section is being led by Mikaela Lewis who moved up from second after dressage to become the overnight leader after a clear show jumping round.
Melanie Mayer and Artie sit at the top of the leaderboard in the Gladiator Floats Introductory Div A on a score of 40.8 while Hannah Walls riding S.M. Delight made the judges sit up and take notice after a dressage test of 33.0. The pair took the lead in the Horsewerks Introductory Div B. Junior rider Katelyn Rowston and Dreamer were lying second after dressage but a clear round saw them take the lead in the Bowral Co-op Introductory and they go into cross country on a score of 42.0. Jill Severn moved up from third to first in the Equiscape Introductory Amateur section thanks to a clear round from Montego. Second in this section is Neatie Malcolm (one of the hard working committee members) riding her daughters horse Thorsby Park Sonnet.
Mikayla McVicar (pictured above) caught my eye as she rode the very cute ‘Maggie’ round the show jumping course in the junior preliminary section. I caught up with Mikayla to see how her day was going and to hear what she had to say click on the icon below.
With a slight power problem during the day the results of the international classes along with the EvA 105 were not known at the time of writing. But with Shane Rose having two horses in the 12 strong CIC3* class you can be pretty sure his name will be up towards the top end of the leaderboard (Note: Saturday results now available CLICK HERE)
The day finishes with un-plaiting
