This little guy had better get out of the way before the riders come through the Quarry on Sunday
Although the weather was a bit wild and woolly yesterday around the Yarra Valley, the picturesque location of the Wandin Park Horse Trials (not to mention an area with some lovely wineries and eateries), the forecast for this weekend’s CIC eventing at Wandin is good. A gale force wind and some rain have blown away the autumn dust and softened the ground slightly and the forecast is now for a comfortable overcast 25 degrees for Saturday and Sunday.
Sit on the hill and watch the riders fly by
Wandin has long been a fixture of the Australian eventing calendar and is well known for its Quarry water jump and spectator viewing vantage spots. Sadly there never seems to be enough spectators at Australian events so, if you are thinking of coming to Wandin to watch, please do. Sit on the top of the hill from where you can see much of the cross country course on Sunday, bring a picnic, nibble on some of the catering provided or drop by after lunch in one of the nearby wineries. We can heartily recommend the Coldstream Brewery – just ten minutes from the event; good food, great atmosphere and of course their own beer as well as local wines.
The Coldstream Brewery is a good spot for a quick bite and beer near the event
But back to the event. One of the highlights of this event is the MecWorma Young Event Horse class for 4 and 5 Year old horses; a class which focuses attention on some of the future stars we see in years to come. On Saturday these horses are literally put through their paces with Movement in Hand and Showing of Paces and they show jump on the Sunday
This year there is also a welcome addition to the event with competitors in the lower sections getting to tackle the Big Wandin cross country course. Wandin Park has two cross country courses; Big Wandin and (not surprisingly!) Little Wandin. For the first time the Preliminary, Introductory and Training 2 &3 Sections will heading out on the Big Wandin course (no doubt there will be a lot of very excited competitors who have been aiming to do this for a while!) while Training 4 & 5 will do their cross country on Little Wandin on Saturday.
In the higher classes the usual suspects will be attendance with the notable exception of last year’s CIC 3* winner, Murray Lamperd and Under the Clocks who are preparing for their trip to Badminton (no doubt with lots of vaccinations now) but Murray will be riding Don Skipcello in the RACV CIC 2*. I won’t go through the Competitors Draw as you can view it here but some of the names to watch obviously are Victorian riders Will Enzinger, Amanda Ross, Katja Weimann, Juana Andreou, Rob Palm, Natalie Davies, Chelsea Priestly and many more talented riders and horses across the classes.
Cassie Lowe and Koko Pop, last year's winners of the Mecworma Young Event Horse
An Eventful Life will be videoing all of the competitors on Big Wandin on Sunday so there will be plenty of cross country viewing here late next week but we’ll try and show the winning CIC 3* ride as soon as possible after the event.
We’ll also be bringing you reports, photos and results from Wandin Park on Saturday and Sunday. It’s going to be a big weekend of eventing in Australia as we’re also covering the Queensland International 3 Day Event (including the State of Origin and Alltech Equine Advantage Eventing Series)thanks to John Lechner and Alison Duthie will be reporting from Berrima CIC in NSW.
