I’m always a sucker for eventing nostalgia — even when it makes me wince a bit — and these videos of Gawler’s World Championship cross-country back in 1986 are particularly interesting, not least because my focus is wholly on next month’s Pratoni trip at the moment. Like Pratoni, Gawler goes heavy on the hills at some points in its course, and there are some particularly queasy, vertigo-inducing angles on the camerawork on these videos — but it’s fascinating to see how horses and riders tackle a slope of that magnitude, because we’ll see them do the same again on the famous Pratoni Slide in September. Crack a beer for these videos, and enjoy. An awful lot has changed and I, for one, am glad of it.
EN TRENDS:
