Dressage August 2010

Dressage Competition and Judges Clinic

Saturday and Sunday 14 &15 August 2010

Samford Showgrounds

Judges Tina Marshall and Madeleine Bentley, Victoria

Qualifing event for the Ross Siemon Memorial Trophy

for Driven Dressage High Points Award

The Samford Showgrounds formed the perfect venue for our dressage weekend, with the grounds prepared and the dressage arena set up by Ian Taylor and Jim Cassidy. 

On Saturday there were five competitors, seven horses and a total of fourteen tests driven. Our interstate judges, Tina Marshall and Madeleine Bentley from Victoria, felt the standard of our dressage in Queensland was on a par with our Southern counterparts and were impressed with the presentation of the competitors and their horses.  Congratulations to Deanna Hibberd and Jim Cassidy for scoring highest in the pony and horses classes respectively.

Our State Dressage Convenor Helen Baskerville put in a lot of time and effort to make this weekend a resounding success, so thank you Helen. Thanks must also go to our interstate judges, candidate judges, pencillers, competitors and members of the Samford & District Carrige Drivers Inc. for making this event so successful. Not only was it a very informative weekend but a very social one as well.

Four candidate judges were assessed (Tony Burke, Bronwyn McAdam, Laura Scott and Marilyn Taylor) and all were acknowledged in being nominated as Dressage Judges. Six current dressage judges refreshed on the Sunday and some in-depth discussion ensured regarding interpretation of rules.

ACDS Queensland Branch anticipates this is the beginning of a resurgence of Driven Dressage in our State and hope to see clubs host more dressage competitions and more competitions realise the value of dressage as the basis of training for all carriage driving disciplines.