Camden Equestriad – the riders’ event

Rebecca Ashton reports from Camden and she took the photos too…

“Shane is one of the few people in the world that can make me look lazy. I sit back and watch him and just shake my head,” laughs Sonja Johnson as I talk to her at this year’s enormous Equestriad Event at Camden Bicentennial Park, run by Shane and Nikki Rose and their wonderful committee…

Shane Rose on Wisteria Lane, 6th in the TRM CIC 2*

The one-day event (over two days) is run by riders for riders. With trade stands up close to the main arena, a big screen, flapping hospitality tents and a cross country course that runs through the main arena, it’s an atmosphere rarely experienced by Aussie horses coming up the ranks. The event caters for everyone, from EvA60 classes for juniors right up to the Elite CT 4* and CIC 3* and this year the decision was made not to limit numbers, so the event enjoyed the largest ever number of entries.

Already crazy busy with a full stable of horses, what on earth possessed an overloaded eventer to take on yet another project? “Selfish reasons probably,” explains Shane. “There’s not another show like this in Australia other than your big three day events; Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, and to a degree, I just feel like our horses don’t get the opportunity to compete in front of crowds and big screens and different environments. It’s an opportunity to get our horses out in this sort of atmosphere, so that when they do go overseas to events like Aachen and World Games, it’s not thrust upon them.”

Stuart Tinney on Pluto Mio during the Skipmaster CT 4* dressage

“I guess the first time we did it, I also wanted to show people that you could do it, and try and encourage other people that it is possible to stretch the boundaries and try to engage people. For instance we have little things such as the petting zoo, face painting, jumping castles and hospitality. We also try to do different things like the jumping at night to get people to come and watch and be involved in the event.”

“So, I rounded up a few friends and said, ‘This is what we’re going to do. ‘Come on! Let’s go!’ We’ve got a great group of people. The committee itself isn’t that big. There’s about eight or ten people, but there’s a bunch of people who just come and help. They’re really, really valuable helpers, who come and do dressage arenas, paint and flag cross country jumps. We’ve been doing it for about six years. It’s considerably bigger this year. People seem to enjoy it.”

Shane brought multiple rides, including his top horses CP Qualified and Virgil, who both ran in the CT 4*. So, where to from here? “Both those horses will do the CIC in Sydney and Melbourne and then at the end of June hopefully head over to Europe and do Aachen then Rio for one of them and the other will go to Burghley. Glenorchy South Park, who won the Bates Saddles CIC 3*, is a fairly inexperienced 3* horse but he’s really stepping up and will go to Sydney in a couple of weeks with Shanghai Joe. My aim with Shanghai Joe is to qualify him as a back up horse for the other two. I’m really lucky to have three or four really nice ones and a bunch of young horses.”

“After the Equestriad we also have a clinic with Christoph Hess where we’ll do a review of the test here this weekend. That’ll be really good.“

Christoph arrived on Thursday and is staying until 8th of May. He judged the CIC 3*, the CNC 3* and the CT 4* at the Equestriad, before the clinic for riders long listed for Rio. Herr Hess was very impressed with what he saw, “I expected a very small competition, but it is a competition with 700 horses. We have nearly 1000 horses at the Bundeschampionate but that is three to seven-year-old horses for all disciplines. I couldn’t believe it! I thought maybe 150 horses. When we walked the course and I looked from the hill and I saw all these arenas, left and right, for me it’s absolutely amazing. I think its a really good thing now before Sydney and Melbourne. It’s a mixture between a training situation and a proper competition situation that’s really challenging. The good riders will produce good pictures and some of the others will make some mistakes. I think for the selectors it is really a good competition.”

Fresh from a successful Sydney CDI, Grace Kay enjoys an eventing win in the Skipmaster EvA95 B on Celerity Park Firenze

Christine Bates is a Camden local and Rio hopeful. She also found the event a fabulous opportunity for her three horses to experience life a little. “The younger 3* horse (Ned O’Reilly), he had his eyes popping out of his head earlier today. I rode him then put him away, did Adelaide Hill’s test and brought him back out and he was much better, but then I almost worked him too hard because when I hopped on to do my test, he felt tired! He still did a good test though. We don’t have many shows in Australia where you get this atmosphere so it’s understandable when they come out and go, ‘Woo!’. It was nice today because of how the times were, I could just keep giving them lots of little rides until they realised it’s really quite boring and they were really good. Sometimes at the one day events you’re on early and you don’t get to put the work in.”

Teegan Ashby on Rockingham No Reason. 9th in the TRM CIC 2*

Christine decided not to run the two horses cross-country though because, despite numerous threats from ominous clouds, rain was scarce on the ground. “The going’s quite hard and Adelaide Hill is not built like a Thoroughbred. He’s got short, front legs and he does feel it, even when the ground’s firm. I’ve got Sydney where I’ll do the CIC 2* on him and then when I get to England I have another one day event, so it’s not worth breaking him this far out.” She did however run George O’Reilly in the EvA 105 A to take home the blue ribbon.

Christine praised, “Shane and his crew do an awesome job and each event gets bigger and better. It’s probably the premier one-day event in Australia now. You know it’s going to be tough competition.”

And tough it was. She was up against some formidable riders such as former Olympic medalists Stuart Tinney and Sonja Johnson. Stuart brought five horses including his two young German horses Queen Mary and Carlchen as well as Normandy WEG ride Pluto Mio, who was allowed a day off from the cross country. “I’m doing the Combined Training here with him because last week he ran at Albury and he’ll probably run at Sydney and Melbourne as well. The young ones need to step up to that level. They’ve been 3* a while but haven’t done a CCI. They’re still quite green.” Despite that, Stuart will keep his options open in his lead up to Rio, although Pluto Mio remains his front runner and didn’t let his rider down, winning the Skipmaster CT 4*. Stuart was also full of praise for the Camden event, “I think Shane and the committee here do a wonderful job and what’s great here is that they try to emulate some atmosphere similar to a championships because that’s the biggest thing in this country, we’re often doing it in a paddock. They run the event so well.”

Stuart Tinney on Queen Mary jump in front of the hospitality tents in the main arena. 9th in Bates Saddles CIC 3*

Sonja arrived from across the Nullarbor last Sunday. “It’s always great to come over here just to see the number of people who are running. Mind you, our numbers are also picking up over in the West, but what is it here? Twenty dressage arenas! I think the fact that the competition runs in the middle of the school holidays means that people can come as well. It’s a credit to the whole committee because they’re all riders as well. That’s happening more in the West also. More riders are running CICs because we’re the ones who want them!”

Equestriad is a credit to Shane, Nikki and their committee. Instead of waiting for things to change, they’ve listened to fellow competitors, gone ahead and changed things themselves. And as the old saying goes, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” Shane Rose is a perfect example.