This year Dressage NZ sent three horses and riders to Australia to compete at the Sydney CDI 3* International Dressage Event. I was lucky enough to be chosen to go, here is my take on the whole experience...
Mr B and I set off from home on the 27th of April headed for our first stop, Brooklands Park where we stayed for a couple of nights and some final tune-up lessons prior to departure. It’s always nice to get away to Brooklands and this time was no exception. The horses’ flight was scheduled for the Thursday, so we traveled to Auckland on Wednesday afternoon to Lisa B’s lovely property where Mr B and I stayed the night (as Mr B has had problems traveling in the past, I wanted to ensure he had plenty of recovery time between trips). On Thursday Karen and Murray dropped off Ammo, and then drove straight to the airport as they were to fly ahead of the horses.

Due to a late change in plans, IRT was able to arrange for me to fly with the horses on the outward leg, so I joined Lisa’s groom, Becs on the transporter to the airport on Thursday evening. With very slow traffic on the motorway that night, the truck was late picking us up, and it was with a few nervous butterflies that we made our way to the airport, arriving in time to simply ID and load the horses, throw our bags on board, and take off! We sat in the cockpit for take off and landing which was quite an eye opener. We found out later that it was a 40 year old plane…the flight itself was uneventful, the scariest part was probably the interval between truck and plane when the horses were held on the tarmac in the dark with flashing lights, machinery and LOTS of noise.

Three hours later we landed in Sydney and with minimal fuss were loaded onto the transporter and whisked away to SIEC, about 45 minutes on the motorway. Karen and Murray had prepared the horses’ beds and we got them settled and spent our first night in an extremely retro (beige and lime green!) caravan on site.

Our classy accommodation on site.

Mr B using the facilities at SIEC

Mr B admiring his Zilco sheet from www.tackshop.co.nz

We were very lucky to be able to stay on site, as SIEC was hosting a “weekend of world cup” with a CCI3* (eventing) and world cup qualifier CSI (show jumping) and with the place full of horses, they only managed to squeeze us in somehow. It was a bonus for us, as we had entertainment and pre-show shopping opportunities on our doorstep! We also got to see Clarke Johnstone win the 2 star 3DE for NZ! Yay!