Nicholson to Design Three Day Event Course

John Nicholson, brother of Olympic eventer Andrew Nicholson, has designed a totally new cross-country course for this year’s NRM National Three-day Event at the Fiber Fresh National Equestrian Centre, Aratiatia, on 20-22 May.

John gained fame for his World Cup cross-country course at Kihikihi, and declined to work anywhere else initially, but was eventually persuaded to do the track for the eventing title class at the Horse of the Year Show in Hastings, and has now turned his talent to Taupo.

The course has a whole new look, utilizing terrain in the DOC Reserve alongside the Waikato River, where a mammoth amount of work has been done clearing wild pines to carve out tracks through the woods, pruning trees to aid visibility, and grassing the tracks. The turf is sparse at this stage, and the surface fragile, but with John’s landscaping (even re-arranging huge rocks) the area will develop a “central plateau” character of its own.

The track is also running through the main arena, so the viewing will be much improved from the trade village and refreshment areas, and is not going up the Landcorp hill. As John said, “Why would you want to go up the hill? No-one can see anything up there.”

His Kihikihi track was described by the Australian judge officiating at this year’s World Cup round as “the best in Australasia”, and Clarke Johnstone, winner of both the New Zealand and Australian World Cup rounds, and currently leading the global series, says, “I’m so excited to see what John has done at Taupo – really looking forward to it.”

A massive entry of 260 horses will be put through four levels of competition, with sixteen elite combinations contesting the NRM 3* class, forty-six the Fiber Fresh 2*, while the 1* and Pre-novice levels will run concurrently on Saturday morning prior to the top classes.

It is unique to have two separate cross-country courses being ridden at the same time, but it worked last year, so is being repeated again in order to accept the entries of all those wanting to participate in a three-day event. Both the 1* and Pre-novice will be run in championship and non-championship divisions. Bing Allen, Rotorua, has the mammoth task of setting these two tracks.

Source: Virginia Caro, Equestrian Sports NZ