Shane Rose (above) took out the win in the Equestrian NSW CCI3* at the Sydney International Three Day Event, riding his own and John Walker’s Taurus.
“He was a good boy,” said Shane of the nine year old gelding that only three weeks ago won the individual Trans Tasman title in Kihikihi. “He was a little flat today and I think that’s why we had a couple of rails down. I think that was probably due to his trip to New Zealand, which was only a three weeks ago but he still went out and did what I needed him to do, so I have to be happy with that.”
The excitement went right down to the wire with only eleven marks separating the top eight riders. Former Australian selector, Seumas Marwood riding Wild Oats was the rider to provide spectators with the first clear round of the afternoon, which left them in eleventh place overall. Two riders later Christine Bates and Adelaide Hill (below) began their round but, despite jumping a lovely clear round, one time penalty saw her finish seventh rather than sixth.
Sonja Johnson had two rails down and some time penalties on her first ride, Belfast Mojito, in the CCI3* but she didn’t look like touching a rail with her second ride, Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison.
“I think I’m the only rider to finish on my dressage score so I think that’s pretty good,” said Sonja who had made the long trip over from Western Australia. Sonja’s score of 51.6 was good enough to see her finish in sixth place overall and now the question will be which riders will feel they should back up this event with another three day run at Melbourne in June.
Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison stands in the final line up.
Megan Jones had an interesting round on Kirby Park Allofasudden when, having taken down the last part of the treble, and riding towards the last fence she noticed that the back rail on the oxer had been blown out of the cups by the wind.
“I was jumping the second to last fence when I saw the rail in the last fence hit the ground. I thought I’d better not jump it like that so I turned a circle and waited for the fence to be rebuilt before I set off again,” said a cool thinking Megan. The rail dropped Megan (pictured below) back from third back to fifth and she will surely be another rider thinking what she should do now with regard to where she runs her horses next.
Emma Mason was kicking herself for not kicking on enough on both cross country and showjumping day. “I’m pleased to have just ridden a clear show jumping round but those 0.8 time penalties yesterday and the two I picked up today in the showjumping were pretty costly. Without them I would have finished second instead of fourth. But he was a good boy so I’m still pretty happy and I’m really happy that my groom, Kate Kerslake, (below) won the Agnes Banks Equine Clinic Groom’s Award. She works so hard that she deserves some recognition.”
Mustang, ridden by Emma Scott, put in some really impressive leaps as they made their way round John Vallance’s showjumping course and it was a shame when they just tapped fence four and it fell. Emma’s score of 50.4 was the same as Emma Mason’s but, because she finished two seconds under yesterday’s optimum time, she moved into third place.
After coming so close to clocking up several good results, but just missing out for various reasons, it was lovely to see Tim Boland and GV Billy Elliot finish second after jumping a great clear round. There is no doubt that Billy Elliot is a talented horse and he showed just how scopy he was in the showjumping, giving each fence plenty of air.
But the day belonged to Shane Rose and everyone was delighted to cheer him as he made his winner’s lap of honour.
