Shaw Lee added the South Island One-Day Event Championship to his ever-growing trophy cabinet when he easily won the Dunstan Horsefeeds CIC3* class at the National Equestrian Centre, McLeans Island, Christchurch, with rider Emily Cammock.
While they were not the leaders after dressage, clear show jumping with just two time faults put them into the top spot. Today they looked all class as they stormed around Nick Pyke’s cross-country course, making easy work of the two narrow fences in the water jump, and adding 10 time faults to their score. Emily also finished second on Lewis, who is such a scopey horse across the country, but incurred 26.8 time faults.
Emily was very pleased with both of her horses. “Shaw Lee has won every event he has gone in for the last two seasons,” she said afterwards. She won the National Three-Day Eventing title on him last year at Taupo and is aiming to defend her crown, if she still has him at that point. “The plan is to sell some horses and upgrade the truck,” Emily said. “He’s like a pony, great for anyone wanting to get mileage at that level.” The 13 year-old gelding has missed big bits of some seasons, as Emily has put her equestrian career on hold to have her two children. With such low mileage, she doesn’t discount him going on to be competitive internationally, as he still has plenty of time left to reach his peak. “I would love to go back to Kentucky, it is such a great event, but the kids are first now so I don’t know if it will ever happen. I don’t have the ambition any more to get team honours, but I love competing at this level and I love producing young horses.”
Emily has certainly got a good team at the moment, from her two three-star horses down to those at the lowest levels. One who impressed is Impeccable, who finished seventh in the one-star class. “He’s little, green and a super jumper.” He got very upset just before his dressage test this weekend, however, as Emily put a false tail on him for the first time and he really didn’t like it. By the time she had taken it off, he was upset and didn’t settle back down in time to do his test.
Emily is soon heading up to the North Island for Equitana where she will compete in the Express event before heading to Rotorua and then on to the Puhinui three-day. Shaw Lee has been to Puhinui before but had to be scratched before the dressage test as he was kicked in the yards, so Emily is hoping his run of success will continue this year.
Corey Wood had the fastest cross-country round of the day with just 5.6 time faults, but unfortunately was ruled to have jumped outside the flag in the second element in the first water. Under the new (and hard to administer) rules, he incurred 50 jump penalties. While he wasn’t sure if he had jumped clear or not, the fence judge couldn’t answer his question – that’s forbidden under the new rules. Unfortunately for Corey, the TDs spent some time looking at our photos of him jumping the fence, and decided that Pick Up Line’s shoulders were outside the flag. It really is a hard rule to enforce, and puts a lot of pressure on the fence judges.
Kirsty Sharapoff elected to run Shoot the Breeze in the Hei Hei Pharmacy CIC2* class this weekend. The horse was feeling “off” when competing up at Arran Station recently, and Kirsty said it was a “PHEW” moment when they went through the flags today after an accomplished clear cross-country with just 7.6 time faults. “We threw everything at him after that [Arran Station]: the vets, got his bloods done, the physio, and saddle fittings. It was a combination of a number of things, but we have a new saddle on him as he has changed shape. While he was honest at Arran, he just wasn’t the Merv who pinged over his fences.” He was certainly back to pinging today!
Kirsty has elected to head to the two-star class in Southland for her next eventing outing, and is thinking that maybe Kihikihi could be a good option. She is also “tentatively aiming for Taupo for the three-star.” As for any longer-term plans, the modest Kirsty isn’t sure. “He’s got the ability to go four-star but it’s the muppet on top that might not!”
Save of the day went to Larissa Srhoy who really should have fallen off when Rockquest misjudged the second element of a combination. “I thought I was a goner, he misread it, saw a big one and ended up banking it.” The pair crumbled on landing, and those of us near the fence dropped cameras and clip boards, and started running towards the pair, thinking they were down. Rockquest managed to scramble up and there was the whoosh of the air bag going off, with Larissa perched somewhere up around the horse’s ears. It was nearly all over as Rockquest cantered off, but Larissa somehow managed to stay on, and eventually get back in the saddle to continue the course with her air vest fully inflated. “I undid it so it was flapping around, but the neck bit took a while to go down so I had to ride with my head forward,” she laughed as she gave a turtle-like demonstration. “The silver lining was that he listened to me after that; he thought he knew best before then!” While she incurred plenty of time faults as the recovery did take some time, Larissa went on to jump clear and finish in third place.
Brent Jury got the quinella in the 105 class on two lovely young horses, Gorky Park (who is just six) and SE Highveld. His three-star star, SE Hedging, is enjoying his stay in the North Island with Richard Otto. Brent is heading up to compete the horse at Rotorua and Puhinui.
ESNZ Eventing Board Member and Event Director, Margaret Evans, and her team did a great job of putting the competition on. In the sponsors’ tent by the water jump at lunch time, there was a short presentation to visiting Technical Delegate Des Hughes from Australia. Des, who is originally from the Waikato, was presented with the perfect present for a Kiwi/Aussie – Kelly Wilson’s book, Saving the Snowy Brumbies.
It was also great to see one of the hardest-working eventers in the country win the last class of the day. Claudia Wilson is not only the secretary for the event, but rode FIVE horses over the weekend, and won the 65cm class on Strate Shot.
The photos from the event will be available on Pegasus Communications‘ website shortly and here are the results of all the classes.
| Dunstan Horsefeeds CIC3* | |||
| 1 | Shaw Lee | Emily Cammock | 68.1 |
| 2 | Lewis | Emily Cammock | 88.4 |
| 3 | Allander Rocket | Lydia Truesdale | 98.4 |
| 4 | Pick Up Line | Corey Wood | 116.9 |
| Hei Hei Pharmacy CIC2* | |||
| 1 | Shoot The Breeze | Kirsty Sharapoff | 54.9 |
| 2 | Lucero | Giles Gormack | 73.6 |
| 3 | Rockquest | Larissa Srhoy | 78.1 |
| 4 | Star’s Ransom | Mikayla Green | 90.6 |
| 5 | King Curtis | Janelle Gibson | 174.4 |
| Ultimate Design and Renovation CIC1* | |||
| 1 | Happy Go Lucky | Molli Thacker | 55 |
| 2 | WS Paradise | Rebecca Wardle | 59.7 |
| 3 | Alfresco | Anna Poole | 59.9 |
| 4 | Antara Whiskey Mac | Maria van Kuijk | 66.9 |
| 5 | Whats The Buzz | Jessie Fitzjohn | 70.8 |
| Saddlery Barn CNC105 | |||
| 1 | SE Gorky Park | Brent Jury | 30.2 |
| 2 | SE Highveld | Brent Jury | 42.4 |
| 3 | Tripel Shot | Claudia Wilson | 51.1 |
| 4 | Loodle Bug | Emma Simpson | 52.7 |
| 5 | Cavorts | Tracy Haggart | 68.1 |
| Betavet CNC105 – Under 21 years | |||
| 1 | My Rocket Man | Charlotte Coleman | 42.7 |
| 2 | Kemdale | Tarryn Jones | 43 |
| 3 | Braxton Boy | Annabelle Jones | 52.1 |
| 4 | Corivale Greased Lightning | Johanna Wylaars | 57.6 |
| 5 | Ka Pai Kiwi | Jordan Shrimpton | 67.8 |
| Weatherbeeta CNC95 | |||
| 1 | Mr O’Likely | Rebecca Smithey | 28.7 |
| 2 | My Muskateer | Holly Sanders | 35.1 |
| 3 | Des | Emily Cammock | 39.2 |
| 4 | Tygra | Lauren Enright | 39.4 |
| 5 | Nero | Anna Poole | 40.9 |
| Lime Solutions CNC95 – Under 21 | |||
| 1 | Te Puke | Charlotte Thomas | 32.8 |
| 2 | Deja Vu III | Georgie Dickson | 34.4 |
| 3 | Winston | Lucy Cochrane | 36.3 |
| 4 | Mister Puzzle | Caitlin Shrimpton | 36.9 |
| 5 | Yippee Ki Yay | Fabriana McQuarrie | 37.4 |
| Equissage CNC80 | |||
| 1 | Aquila’s Altair | Alison Sutton | 30.5 |
| 2 | Harlequin Spark | Nicole Bulford | 33.8 |
| 3 | Amberfields Grace | Hayley Egan | 34 |
| 4 | Wallie | Jo Hallenstein | 34.5 |
| 5 | Starlight Express | Jo Benison | 36.3 |
| Equissage CNC80 – Under 21 years | |||
| 1 | Esperanza Power Trip | Annabelle Boon | 32.2 |
| 2 | Rainbow Scout | Caroline Holder | 35 |
| 3 | Airplay | Georgia Levey | 37 |
| 4 | Illywhacker 2 | Tinesha Benson | 38.5 |
| 5 | Pavlova | Katherine Hadler | 41.2 |
| BurgerFuel CNC65 | |||
| 1 | Strate Shot | Claudia Wilson | 37.5 |
| 2 | High Rise | Louise Hipkins | 41.5 |
| 3 | MandM | Rowan Campbell | 51.2 |
| 4 | Pure Luck | Amalia Rowley | 55.5 |
| 5 | Heads Will Roll | Cameron Boon | 56 |
