Shane Rose and Virgil Claim Victory at Australia’s First FEI Event Since Lockdown

Olympian Shane Rose and Virgil have taken out the CCI4*-S at Equestriad in Camden, NSW the first FEI competition to be conducted in Australia since the COVID-19 global pandemic placed the world on hold.

Shane and the iconic Vigil are no strangers to success in the international arena with numerous wins and placings under their belt including 1st at Blair Castle CIC3* (SCT) in 2017 and 3^rd place at Pau (FRA) CCI5*-L in 2019. The combination also represented Australia at the FEI World Equestrian Games 2018 in Tryon (USA) with the team securing Australia’s place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

"It was his first event out since Pau 5* which was almost a year ago and I couldn't have been happier with him" said Shane.

"I was very happy with his dressage test.  We have been working on some new things with Bettina Hoy and I am really happy with the improvements we are seeing, I think we have some really good scores coming our way soon. His showjumping was as good as it has ever been, he has always been a great jumper and on the cross country he found a really good rhythm once we got about 6 or 7 fences in to the course, I was really thrilled with him" describes Shane.

Making this win even more special for Shane is the fact that he is also a member of the organising committee responsible for conducting the event. Shane is not only a talented rider striving for success at the top level of the sport, but also dedicates himself to giving back to the eventing community by ensuring riders are able to compete at quality events. 

Shane and the team at Equestriad worked tirelessly in the lead up to the event to ensure all FEI safety and COVID-19 guidelines were in place and adhered to onsite so the event could go ahead for Australian riders.  

"The event was awesome and really ran seamlessly for the two days. As a committee we had to pull it all together in a very short space of time and the entire committee worked so hard in the last few weeks and did an amazing job. The feedback from the riders has been amazing"

"Obviously we had to run the event in a very different format with the COVID-19 restrictions and we could only have 500 people on the venue at any one time. This was the first time we have run two separate events over two days, with some classes running on both days" explains Shane

Fellow Olympian and High Performance Eventing Gold Squad rider Stuart Tinney rounded out the top three positions in the CCI4*-S finishing in both second and third place. Stuart finished second on the stunning chestnut Celebration owned by Elisabeth Brinton who's fresh off his win at Canberra Horse Trials, and finished third on his own Leporis.

The event, which was held under strict social distancing protocols, hosted a range of classes at FEI and national level.

With some States in Australia still in various stages of lockdown, notably Victoria, NSW competitors dominated the entry list across all classes.

The event was held over two days with all three phases of the competition for each class being conducted on the same day.

Winners of the FEI classes were:

CCI4*-S Shane Rose and Virgil
CCI3*-S Niki Rose and Dreamcatcher
CCI2*-S Courtney Foster and Gattamelata HPS

Congratulations to all competitors.

Full results can be found here