Young Showjumping Horse Championship Horseland Story by Suzanne McGill Photos Red McQueen www.redfoto.com.au year olds – 1.20m). The horses jumped consistently well over the inviting courses, designed sympathetically for this competition by Geraldton’s Kevin Tully, who intensified tracks in classes later on the weekend. Swan River Showjumping.... A winning combination of Horseland Young Showjumping Horse Championship, Go for 2 & 5 Jumping Masters & Official Competition. This year, Swan River asked World Equestrian Games rider/international coach Chris Chugg to travel from Sydney to join local judges Les Bunning, from the Swan Valley, and Ross Newman from Geraldton. The three brought a balance of perspectives based on their international, national and regional competition experiences and their familiarity with breeding and training young horses. The competition protocol was the same for each age group. At the start of Round 1, each horse did 60 seconds of flatwork, during which the judges assessed their paces, rhythm, tempo, obedience and education (for the particular age level). Round 2 involved only jumping. Essentially the same things were judged in the jumping rounds, with scope and technique added to the mix. “There was a very good standard of young horses – and the right number in each group,” said Chris Chugg who judged the horses on paper and also rode each age-group winner at the end of the individual classes (with a video cam attached to his helmet by Redfoto.TV) to help determine the overall 2013 Horseland Young Horse Champion. Both WA and interstate studs were well-represented in the Left: Champion Horseland Young Showjumping Horse, Yalambi’s Cambridge and Maddison Stephen. Cheryl Campbell’s crystal ball predicted a shining future for young showjumping horses when she initiated the Horseland Young Showjumping Horse Championship with Swan River Showjumping three years ago. But even Cheryl could hardly have predicted the high quality and overwhelming entry numbers in each of the 4, 5, 6 and 7 year old classes at the third of these annual events, held on the Saturday of Swan River’s two-day indoor show held on 25th and 26th of June at Brookleigh. “I’ve always believed in the importance of supporting and encouraging the development of young performance horses in WA,” commented Cheryl, who owns the Horseland franchise in Midland and in the past created young horse championships for dressage and eventing horses in WA. Her vision to do the same for showjumping inspired the enthusiastic participation of other Horseland stores in the state. In what has now become a yearly fixture on the Equestrian WA calendar – and a bellwether for showcasing the state’s best young jumping horses. Rather than being a straightforward jumping competition, the young horses were judged by a panel of three judges, who watched the horses in each of the four age groups jump two untimed rounds over the same course at appropriate heights for the particular age level (4-year olds – 90cm; 5 year olds – 1.05cm; 6 year olds – 1.15m; 7