ByJoy Ringrose
The sun shone brilliantly on showjumping competitors from all over Australia, and also from New Zealand and the US.
Held on one of the best showjumping grounds in the nation – the Nambour Showgrounds – the Sunshine Coast Showjumping Club’s annual July Show was a great success.
This show is the warm-up for the Queensland rounds of the Pacific League World Cup showjumping, so the best in the nation were there to participate.
The $30,000 in prize money, including the $10,000 Grand Prix class, saw some spectacular jumping during the four-day show.
Over 350 horses competed on the weekend, in three different rings, with some of the smaller classes attracting over 120 entrants.
Saturday’s spectacular Speed Class, a one round dash for cash, saw New Zealand Olympian Katie McVean, and On the Point Sandy, come home in a blistering 47.00 seconds, well ahead of her nearest rival, Tim Bowman, in 48.27 seconds.
Sunday saw two elite rider classes, the first of which was the Future Stars event, for horses ten years and under.
Sydney-based rider James Arkins took line honours with double clear rounds, including an accurate 48.96 seconds in the final round.
The biggest event of the show, the Grand Prix, was won by the Sunshine Coast’s own champion, Billy Raymont of Cooroy, whose mount Anton showed the opposition a clean pair of heels.
The final round saw jumps that exceeded the Olympic starting height of 1.60m.
Some jumps were 1.65m and the wall was a whopping 1.70m, reaching the heights of second round Olympic competitions.
With a field of 21 starters, there were 12 horses eligible for the final jump-off against the clock.
Although some horses crashed through the wave vertical jump, all managed to jump the huge wall, showing the terrific quality of the horses in this class.
Billy and Anton did a cool tight round over the huge, long, european-styled course, in 82.07 seconds.
This was more than six seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Katie Laurie, on Dustan Casebook Lomond, who did a clean, careful 88.82 seconds.
Anton is so confident of Billy’s riding that they are able to take lines that are much closer to the jumps, to shave off those extra seconds.
Billy also scored third place and sixth place in this class, taking home a total of $5000.
