December 8, 2009

A team of para-equestrian riders from New Zealand is in Australia for a three-star competition held in conjunction with the Victoria Dressage Festival.

This event is the only one of its kind being held in the Australiasian region between now and the World Equestrian Games (WEG) in September 2010 and offers the riders the opportunity to gain their qualifying scores for possible team selection for the WEG. The riders will be needing to score highly from the international Ground Jury of five judges, two from Australia and the others flying in from the Netherlands, Belgium and France specifically for this event.

The festival, at the Werribee National Equestrian Centre, starts on Thursday and runs to Sunday. It is the first ever international Para-Equestrian event to be held in Australia.

The event has attracted riders from all over Australia and as well at the five New Zealanders, there are also teams entered from Canada and Japan.

Two of the Kiwis, Jenny Affleck and Kim Cram, took their own horses over for the event, Boss II and Halloween with the other four team members, Joanna Jackson, Anthea Gunner, Christine Lawn and Kelly Gabbott will ride leased horses.

There are five grades of competition offered with each grade reflecting the rider's physical ability and hence having different requirements. For the visiting overseas riders - with the exception of the two Kiwi riders - the challenge will be even greater as they will be competing on horses borrowed for the occasion.

The teams competition will be held on Friday, December 11 and the individual competion is held over the weekend with each rider competing in a Championship test and a Freestyle.

Australian riders entered in the Para-Equestrian events represent a "who's who" of their sport. Four riders from the 2008 Paralympian Team will be competing, as well as all five newly crowned 2009 National Champions. Jan Pike could be considered the veteran of the riders, having competed at two Paralympics (Athens and Beijing), winning a silver and bronze medal at the Athens Games as well as two silver medals at the 2003 World Para-Equestrian Championships.

Para-Equestrian became a discipline of Equestrian Australia in January 2009 and with the support of the Australian Paralympic Committee, Equestrian Australia have been working hard to provide Australian riders with high-level competition experience in the lead up to the World Equestrian Games in 2010.

The Para-Equestrian event has been made possible with support from the Australian Sports Commission, the Australian Paralympic Committee and the Equestrian Australia High Performance Programme.