Danni and Toby New Zealand!!

As most of you know the N.Z. Horse Of The Year Show is one of the biggest international show jumping events of the of the year. You do not have to qualify but it is advised that your horse be competing successfully at a world cup level before jumping in an Olympic Cup.
You are able to gain a COC (Certificate Of Capability) in this class for the Olympics, you must be under a certain amount of faults to achieve a COC and depending on the difficulty of the course that is built depends on how many faults you are allowed to have before you cannot qualify for a COC. For example, if the show jumping course that is built has a 4 fault limit then you must get 4 faults or less to get a COC. This Olympic Cup in New Zealand had an 8 fault limit which indicates how hard the track was. 

New Zealand was a far greater success than any of us could have anticipated!

On the 10th of March on a Thursday night Toby got on a flight headed to Auckland NZ, Sara and Danielle loaded him up and said goodbye as they waved him off and wished him a safe trip. On Friday morning the 11th of March the girls were up at about 3:00 am to make a quick getaway and get on the flight to Auckland leaving Sydney at 6:30 am. They arrived in Auckland at around 8:45am (the flight didn’t take them 2hrs, there is a 2hr time difference) from there they went through customs, collected their bags and stepped out onto great NZ soil.

There first task was to go and get the rental car, which was a lovely Subaru and luckily Sara had upgraded as they had 2 passengers and Danielle didn’t pack lightly, the passengers were George Sanna and Julia Hargreaves, their company was lovely, or at least I think Sara’s was to George as Danielle and Julia caught up on their beauty sleep and the cars radio had a brain snap.

After a lovely 2 and a bit hr drive they had arrived in Hamilton at Viki and Jeff McVeans property which was spectacular, as soon as they drove in, Toby’s head was poking out of the stable, they jumped out of the car and went to see how he was, to their surprise he had travelled unbelievable and got straight back into his lunch as soon as he realised it was only Danni and Sara

As the night went on the girls conversed with everyone and enjoyed a lovely dinner, there were plenty of people there, including, Jamie Winning, Julia Hargreaves, George Sanna, Jamie Kurmond, Kathy Graham, Brooke Dobbin, Charlene, Fiona, and Lauren. Danni and Sara were very kindly put up by Sarah Milne, a dear friend of the McVeans and (so they say) a sex therapist. She was an absolute delight and so accommodating to the girls as they were in and out at all hours, we thank her very much for lending her humble abode to a couple of attractive strangers

For the next  3 or so days Danni and Sara went in everyday to ride and look after Uncle Toby, Danni said the arena was actually quite pleasant, it was like a very very fine sand and was almost like a soft clay when it was wet but had all of the characteristics of sand and moulded around the horses feet which made it great grip as well. On the Monday the girls got there at around 7:00am to ride and bath Toby so he was ready to get on the truck at 9:00am. The truck left at about 9:30 am and they followed behind in their Subaru. The drive was 5-6 hrs and Danni took oodles of pictures of all of the mountain sides and sheep. Upon arrival they found Toby’s stable (which was choc a block full of shavings for him) and helped unload the horses off Jeff's truck after Toby was all settled, accommodation had to be sorted again, Sara found there truck that had been kindly lent and they set up camp, conveniently all of the horse feed and gear could fit in the horse area and all of their stuff would fit into the living area, so everything was separate.

Day 1 of competition

Sara was up bright and early to feed, walk and water Toby, Danni eventually got up to go say good morning to him and check out what was going on, she was supposed to be in the 1.30m in the second ring but George said it would be a good idea to swap to the 1.4om because its in the big ring and Toby can sometimes be a little bit spooky. The class started at 2:30pm and Danni was mid field, she just wanted to go out there and get a feel for the arena and see what Toby thought, well I think Toby must’ve liked it because the came 5th in their first ever international competition!

Day 2 of competition (Lady’s Cup)

The Lady’s Cup is a very prestigious event at the Horse of the Year Show, and this yr there was about 40 lady riders entered to compete that afternoon. After walking the course Danni said she felt fairly confident about it, she was mid field again. She decided to stay and watch a few to see how the lines were riding, she watched about 5 or 6 and decided that was enough. Unfortunately oncourse Danni sat up a little too much down the last line and had the second last fence down but was still proud of Toby’s effort ,  also congratulations to Kathy Graham who got 5th and Lucy Akers who was the winner of the class.

Day 3 of competition (Silver Fern)

The warm up class for the Olympic Cup, it was an amazing course and in hind sight Danni said was a great warm up for the Olympic cup. Danni was mid field again and decided not to watch anyone go this time. Danni was in the zone and said Toby felt scopey, she jumped clear though all of the lines and Toby tried he’s butt out through the treble combination, after that she had to do a right hand turn back and jump a solid white oxer with a water underneath it but Danni was still a little flustered form the treble and Toby rolled it out

Nevertheless, he was amazing and made it into the 2nd round and jumped marvellously, he just had number 6 down which was an upright after the water jump.

Day 4 of competition (Olympic Cup)

The course walk was the start of Danielle’s nerves for this event, as she was last on she had a fair while to get the jitters out of her. She watched around 4 people go and decided that was enough to make up her mind about all of the lines. George Sanna (her coach) was about 3 horses before her so the warm up was going to be a bit tricky. As Danielle wouldn’t listen to Sara, Sara decided to get some help and asked Jamie winning for her expertise, she was more than happy to help warm Danni up.
Apart from giving the horse a great warm up and getting his mind on the job, she also gave Danni a great pep talk before she went in, with Toby minus his boots, which Sara still maintains was all part of the plan.
As Sara and Jamie put the back boots on Toby, Jamie psyched Danni up and explained “The only way to ride this course is to attack it! And, as soon as you land, look up at your next fence and be ready to attack it!” She also said “You have every right to be here, this horse has been jumping out of his skin and you’ve been riding him great, there’s no reason why you can’t go out there and jump a clear round” (or something like that). Toby must’ve listened to every word she said because Danni attacked those fences and Toby jumped them. And being the last riders I think it was lucky Danielle had no idea how the rest of the field was going so no pressure was on her and she jumped the only clear round*!!! When she came out of the arena a bit dumb-founded, I don’t think she really realised what she had done, everyone was congratulating her, Sara was crying and people were cheering.

We were ecstatic with the outcome of the trip and hope to do it again next year

Photos by: Take The Moment Photography