QSEC Opening - A Fantastic Venue and Great Day of Entertainment

Horsezone News

QSEC Opening - A Fantastic Venue and Great Day of Entertainment

Published on Friday, September 9, 2011 in General

Horsezone's Jo Johnson was on the spot at the wonderful Queensland State Equestrian Centre Opening last weekend and what a wonderful day it was!

Before visitors were even allowed to enter the state of the art new indoor arena, which was being kept secret until the great unveiling, there was plenty of entertainment on offer outside! With trade stalls and demonstrations by all sorts of different horses and people there was something for everyone.

The Arabian Valley Horse Club were giving rides to love-struck children, on a beautiful Arabian who was done up in traditional costume and a credit to her breed, with the calm manner in which she accepted hordes of children being led around on her back.

If harness is your thing there were fantastic driving displays with races in patterns around cones, in pairs and singularly and these folks went flat out! Still on the harness front there was a pair of handsome grey heavy horses pulling a wagon that gave excited visitors a chance to take a seat, while still being taken around the venue in style for a spot of sight-seeing. The greys' merry clip clop and jingling bells were a wonderful back drop to all the other activities.

Western performance was represented by an impeccably well behaved and pretty Paint Horse called Prissy - top competitors Amy Woinarski and Emma Kurz showed the crowds what western was all about.

The Caboolture Dressage Group had several representatives in attendance, participating in lessons and carrying out traditional dressage moves and training exercises for the interested visitors.

Caboolture Pony Club put on displays of various mounted games and had all the children in attendance yearning for a pony of their own.

Tent Pegging and jousting provided plenty of speed and excitement and got everyone in the mood for moving into the indoor arena where more action was promised!

This amazing variety of horse displays were not only entertaining for horse people, but also for members of the general public who came along to see what the to-do was about and as a result, managed to get up close and personal with real-life horses from all walks of equestrian life!

At 1.45pm visitors moved inside and were impressed by the airy atmosphere of Queensland's newest and certainly most prestigious indoor arena! The design of the building will enable riders and spectators to stay cool in summer and is a wonderful asset to the Queenland equestrian community.

The action continued in the new arena with jumping displays from Finch Farms, Vaulting, a Musical Ride, Trick Riding, Freestyle Dressage by Tor Van Den Berge and Fisherman's Friend and Guy McLean (newly back in Australia from the USA) showing his amazing horse training skills with a team of young horses. All this was topped off by a concert from Troy Cassar-Daley.QSEC’s facilities include one of Australia’s largest covered sand arenas (80m x 40m) with state-of-the art audio-visual capabilities, spectator seating for up to 5,000, meeting and training rooms and a licensed bar.

The entire QSEC site covers more than 30 hectares between the Caboolture Showgrounds and the Caboolture Historical Village and in addition to the indoor arena include five all-weather dressage sand arenas (60m x 20m), additional grass arenas and warm up areas, 150 stables, 8 wash bays, 48 campsites with power and water access plus additional informal camp sites.

A fantastic day of entertainment was put on by organisers to launch this wonderful new venue and I for one, can't wait to ride and show in the new arena!

Below are videos of the various displays put on for the Opening.