Boyd Martin and Trading Aces at the $15,000 Wellington Eventing Showcase. Photo by Jenni Autry.
Wellington is one of those places that doesn’t really require any further description in order for equestrians to be able to pinpoint it on a map. It’s like Cher, but with states instead of surnames, and speed classes instead of power ballads. Sometimes, when I’m doing fitness work in 15 inches of mud and sideways ice rain I ponder how different life could be if I just sacked it all in and went to Welly World to play in the sunshine. But then I remember that the last time I went near the hunter-jumper crowd, monogrammed lavender collars were still in fashion, and that’s just wrong on so many levels (mostly because it was 12 years ago and I still have no intention of getting with the times).
Jennie Brannigan at the Wellington Eventing Showcase. Photo by Jenni Autry.
But the brilliant thing is that the Big W offered us mad and muddy types a generous hand of friendship, which we let Boyd Martin shake for three years in a row. That hand of friendship was the Wellington Eventers Showcase, a fast, furious, and well-heeled ode to the sport, packaged up in a golf-buggy friendly version for the Vineyard Vines and Napa Valley Riesling crowd. And it was GREAT, not least because it involved jumping into a marquee full of people who had possibly never seen mud in real life before.
It wouldn’t be eventing in Wellington without a selfie! Photo courtesy of Laine Ashker.
Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflict with the Winter Equestrian Festival’s showjumping calendar, the Showcase won’t be running this year. We look forward to cheering on our hardy brethren in the sunshine next year, but, in the meantime, here’s an in-depth look back at 2017’s competition, courtesy of Elisa Wallace.
Go eventing, and go sunshine! (No, I don’t mean that, please come back, sunshine, I beg of you…!)
