Craig Barrett and Sandhills Brillaire. Photo from ESJ.
It’s been a dramatic week leading up to Adelaide, as course designer Wayne Copping was rushed to the hospital last week after suffering a heart attack, the FEI reports. He’s since undergone successful bypass surgery and hopes to be on hand when the event begins later this weekend. By sheer luck, experienced British course designer Mike Etherington-Smith just happened to already be in Australia to walk the course with Wayne and work with the Australian High Performance team. Gill Rolton, event director, is thrilled Mike has been able to step in to help:
“We have been very fortunate, because Mike Etherington-Smith flew in to Adelaide on Wednesday to essentially walk the course with Wayne and me as part of his role working with Australian High Performance. Mike stayed over until Friday night and helped the course-builders with the last minute fine-tuning that Wayne would normally do. Mike was able to take up the reins a bit and help out and will be back at the event as Course Director for the FEI Seminar.
“We have had good rain all season”, continues Gill, “and they are doing a lot with irrigation and will be aerating the course and dumping more water on it on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so we should have super footing. For the first time this year the course goes in to the south part of Victoria Park which means on the first part of the course the horses are able to get into a good rhythm and gallop before the more intricate tests in Rymill Park. Considering that many of our elite riders are now based overseas we have a good four-star field including two Kiwis, Donna Smith and Monica Oakley.”
And there’s been even more health-related drama, as two riders set to tackle Australia’s only four-star event have broken their legs in recent weeks and won’t be able to start. Australian Wendy Schaeffer, who rode on the gold-medal winning team in the Atlanta Olympics, broke her leg in two places in a fall while schooling and has withdrawn, the FEI reports. Interestingly, she broke her legs just nine weeks before Atlanta and managed to heal enough to compete, but her leg won’t be mended in time for Adelaide.
Will Enzinger also won’t be competing after he fell from a novice horse last week and broke his leg; he’s currently laid up in the hospital awaiting surgery. Chris Burton, who had originally planned to just serve as a spectator at Adelaide, will take over Will’s ride on TS Jamaimo, a Thoroughbred gelding contesting his first four-star. Chris won this event in 2010 aboard Newsprint, also a Thoroughbred, so he’ll definitely be one to watch this weekend. Last year’s winners Craig Barrett and Sandhills Brillaire are returning to defend their title.
