Adelaide, November 2016 – The Australian International 3 Day Event, second leg of the FEI Classics 2016/17, and which takes place around the Adelaide inner city parklands, introduces Eventing to a whole new crowd every year thanks to its unique location and real celebration of the horse.
This year’s four-star field features ten combinations, and there is plenty of quality in that ten. Rio Olympic team bronze medalist Stuart Tinney is leading the pack with Corinna and Darren Huskinson’s War Hawk, a gelding by the German Holsteiner stallion Ramirez and bred in New Zealand, and their win at this year’s Saddleworld Melbourne International 3 Day 2016 in June suggests he will be a serious FEI Classics contender this year.
Tinney’s fellow Rio team member and 2015 Adelaide winner Shane Rose will be riding Lee Hokianga and Jamie McDonald’s Thoroughbred, Glenorchy South Park, in his debut four-star. Thoroughbreds have a successful history at Adelaide and the Kinjite gelding could well gallop away with a victory.
Wilhelm Enzinger (AUS) is perhaps the most experienced rider not to have won the Adelaide FEI Classics event and he has a double chance this year. Some may remember that he had this chance in 2013, but a broken leg on the eve of the event saw the ride on TS Jamimo go to Christopher Burton (AUS) who claimed the title that year with the former racehorse.
Enzinger has two four-star rides this year, with his own Thoroughbred, Wenlock Aquifer by Alannan – that had its only race win at Victoria Park, the home of the Australian International 3 Day Event – and the ride on Wendy Keddell and Carolyn Jolley’s New Zealand-bred Britannica MVNZ by Silvestone. Both had a run in the four-star last year and finished just out of the top ten, but according to Enzinger “they are going the best they have ever gone, and I am going to the event confident of a good performance”.
The New Zealanders have been known to claim Australia’s premier event and no-one can question their talent. Twenty-four-year-old Andy Daines has spent time riding in the UK with Tim and Jonelle Price and is bringing his and Leanne and David Jensen’s Spring Panorama to tackle their first FEI Classics. They come full of confidence having won the Taupo NZ CIC3* early in October.
The FEI Classics athletes begin their quest for the title in Adelaide this Friday, 4 November, with the Dressage phase in the Victoria Park Main Arena. On Saturday, they will test themselves over Mike Etherington-Smith’s parklands Cross Country course, with the Sunday Jumping phase deciding the title.
FEI Classics 2016/2017 calendar
1 Les 4 Etoiles de Pau CCI 4* (FRA) – 12-16 October 2016
2 Australian International 3 Day Event (AUS) – 3-6 November 2016
3 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event (USA) – 27-30 April 2017
4 Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials (GBR) – 3-7 May 2017
5 Luhmühlen CCI 4* presented by DHL (GER) – 15-18 June 2017
6 Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials (GBR) – 31 August-3 September 2017
3 November 2016
