Para Equestrian Athletes Shine at Victorian Dressage Festival

Para-Equestrian combinations from across Australia and New Zealand this week descended on the Mornington Peninsula to compete in the CPEDI International competition at the Victorian Dressage Festival.

The competition ran over three days and incorporated team, individual and freestyle classes, with each grade also naming an overall winner. In addition, for those riders campaigning for a place on the Australian Paralympic Team the event also gave riders the opportunity to gain their Tokyo 2020 Paralympic qualifying scores. 

Boneo Park’s impressive main arena played host to the Para-Dressage competition for the three days with each combinations performance evaluated by world class judges Sarah Leitch (UK), Anne Prain (FRA) and Sue Cunningham (AUS). These judges are also on the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Ground Jury, allowing the riders a unique opportunity to compete in front of the judges for the Games, which also gives them an indication of their performance ranking on the world stage.

 The quality of the competition seen over the three days was impressive, with seventeen competitors taking to the arena across five classified divisions.

The overall competition winners were:

• Grade I: Marnie Clapham and Freedom Spyda
• Grade II: Victoria Davies and Andaluka Elegido
• Grade III: Emma Booth and Mogelvangs Zidane
• Grade IV: Zoe Vorenas and Neversfelde Kipling
• Grade V: Stuart Drysdale and Blueberry 20

 Winner of the Grade IV, Zoe Vorenas, said of her time at the Victorian Dressage Festival with her horse Kip “I am very happy with how Kip’s work is progressing! It’s nice to feel like all that hard work is paying off and the scores a creeping up bit by bit. Kip is so willing to work harder and always wants to please, so sometimes keeping him a little less expressive is the tricky part! I’m really happy to post good, solid scores towards our Tokyo campaign”

 EA High Performance Para Equestrian Team Coach, Lone Jorgensen, said “We are really happy about the numbers of competitors, as we know we are in the lead up to Tokyo, and we have had some great scores. We have some good potential combinations for Tokyo”