“You’ve got to speak to one of our judges,” said the secretary of Canberra Horse Trials, Kate Mackenzie. “She’s been speaking about how so many riders just throw away marks and I think we should find out more.” So with iphone in hand I tracked down Jodie Newell who had spent the morning judging the EvA80 class and was about to tuck into a lovely looking lunch and asked her to explain more.
“I get really frustrated when you see a lovely horse with a good rider just throwing marks away by, amongst other things, not riding accurately or by not planning as they ride their test. I’m sitting in my judges car wanting to give them a ten and with a bit of thought they could be coming close to that,” said Jodie who, having ridden three horses to Grand Prix level, knows a thing or two about dressage. “I judge a horse for the level they are doing, so I certainly don’t expect a Preliminary test to look anything like a Grand Prix test, but I do expect riders to read their test properly and read the directives on that test and that in itself would help them plan for a better test.”
Before we spoke to Jodie about eventing dressage I asked her how she became involved in the eventing world.
Jodie makes final arrangements for her day at Wallaby Hill tomorrow
