Katrina Brokus recently travelled to NSW to compete with her horse in the SA Interschool team at the Interschool Equestrian Nationals. She shares some of her experiences below.
“The Interschool Equestrian Nationals in Sydney were amazing, I had the best time over there with the team from SA. I competed in the EvA80 Eventing competition and the 90cm Secondary Show Jumping class with my horse, Wurlyana Buckshot (Ned). Eventing is a sport made up of three phases (dressage, cross country and show jumping) and is an all-around test of horse and rider. The pure show jumping competition is comprised of a number of different events all focusing on being able to jump clear over the fences and in the fastest possible time.
My busy week started off with the Eventing dressage test followed by phase 1 of the 90cm show jumping, in which we finished 4th. On Wednesday was the eventing show jumping, coming away with a clear round to move up in the placings after our dressage test. The 90cm show jumping started well but we had an unfortunate rail which kept us out of the placings that day. Thursday was the final phase for the Eventing competition with cross country day.
All the SA riders came away with clear rounds inside the required time, and Ned and I finished up in 12th place overall. The last round of the 90cm show jumping was a one-round jump off, it resulted in us just collecting a rail on the second to last jump to place 9th. Overall, in the secondary 90cm show jumping, with all of the results from each of my rounds collated, we finished 7th out of over 25 riders from all around Australia.
Each night of Nationals different states held activities including a quiz night, team karaoke, on foot arena race and an SA party on the final night to conclude Nationals with the team. Next year’s Interschool Nationals are to be held at Werribee in Victoria, and I am aiming to qualify again and take two horses over to compete in show jumping.”
Rebecca Fidge
Teacher
