Cam Robertson came to our attention at the first horse inspection at Puhinui International Horse Trials thanks to the very jaunty Tam O’Shanter* that he was sporting but it was the story behind the breeches he wore on show jumping day that sealed our interest in the young eventing rider’s wardrobe.
Cam was riding in his first ever 2* class at Puhinui on the 10 year old thoroughbred mare Black Ink where they finished second in the CCI2* Young Rider class, partly due to his ‘lucky breeches’ given to him by Tim Price. Tim had brought them over to wear when riding in the ‘Tip, Strip and Out’ but discovered they were too small (Tim must have been eating too well on his holiday) and decided to donate them to Cam, who had spent some time in 2014 working with the Prices in the UK.
Cam only wore them on the final day of competition but really the dressage day was when he needed them. Black Ink was feeling rather playful in the arena and scored 66.9, putting them at the bottom of the Young Rider class to start but a cracking cross country round, clear and under time, combined with another double clear in the show jumping (making them the only combination to finish on their dressage score in this class) brought them up to second place overall. You can watch Cam and Black Ink's cross country ride here
Cam hopes to head to the New Zealand Horse of the Year show in March where no doubt we’ll be seeing the lucky breeches again.
Cam Robertson after show jumping at Puhinui
*Just some useless trivia for you. The Tam O’Shanter hat is named after the Robert Burns poem that describes the habits of Tam, a farmer who often gets drunk with his friends in a pub and one night, when riding home drunk, has his horse’s tail pulled off by witches as he rides home. Black Ink must be quite glad that Cam doesn’t take her out boozing .......
