Richard and Sue Woerlee with Canterbury Equestrian Properties – South Island Festival of Dressage

When: Saturday 6^th – Monday 8^th February

Where: McLeans Island ESNZ National Equestrian Centre

There’s plenty to ride for this weekend at the South Island festival of Dressage incorporating South Island titles, South Island Super League Series Finals, Zilco Musical Leaderboard finals and the second round of the Richmond Saddlery sponsored young rider Inter island teams competition.

159 horses and ponies line up at McLeans Island from across the South Island plus regular North Island visitor Cate Tobin (Masterton). Cate has three horses entered.  I like it in the Grand Prix, Bradgate Riot Act in the Medium Tour and the Preliminary level Hawkstone Di Maggia.  She can expect strong competition in the Grand Prix from her five southern rivals; Marlborough’s Fortunato (Franzi Van Bruggen-Smit) & Profile (Diane Wallace) Canterbury’s Westford Lanciano (Lauren Haig) & Kinnordy Gambado (Kirsty Schist) & Otago’s Rossellini (Barbara Chalmers) The first of the Grand Prix classes gets underway with the Superior Rubber Surfaces Grand Prix at 4.30pm on Saturday. The ever-popular Zilco Grand Prix Freestyle to Music will feature at noon on Monday.

Eight young horses contest the Astek Stud age group classes focusing on the development of  four- to seven-year-olds, another feature of the event beginning from noon on Saturday.

You can download the event programme here

Bonus points are up for grabs in the  final round of South Island Super 5 leagues and the South Island Zilco Freestyle to Music Leaderboards  

The Super 5 League Leaders look like this going into the final round.  Grand Prix leader Melissa Galloway (Marlborough) had planned to be in the UK by now continuing her Tokyo Olympics bid  preparation but ongoing Covid issues has meant a change of plan and so she will now target the Oro Equestrian North Island Championships later in February and the Land Rover Horse of the Year in March. This leaves the possibility for Barbara Chalmers and Diane Wallace to equal Galloway’s 32pt score but they will need to score 70% or better to do so.  

The Zilco Freestyle to Music Leaderboard results are far from decided. Canterbury’s Millie Thompson leads both the Novice and Advanced levels so will looking to fend off challengers and win two coveted Zilco presentation rugs.  

 The South Island Young Rider team of Gemma Lewis & Penny Weight Effervescent, Millie Thompson   
& Oranoa Night Owl, Estella Velenski & Amazing Spy and Ashleigh McLean &  San Tiero have been
set a target of 466.85pts by their North Island counterparts if they are to retain the York
Corporation Trophy they took home from Taupo last year.

The Canterbury organising committee is indebted to the fabulous line up of sponsors supporting
the event and to the hardworking behind the scenes volunteers who have given so much time
leading into the event and those who will be supporting the event over the next three days.

South Island Festival of Dressage 2021 final print or view results live online.