Fran Cleland, The Regional

There's an old saying, "he's got a good eye for a horse". It means someone is skilled at recognising all-round quality and that undefinable “something” that is a combination of conformation, temperament and suitability for a specific purpose, such as racing or riding. Greg Gerry and Darren Telford, who run Whitmere Stud, certainly know how to do that.

Just under 50 competitors from across Australia and New Zealand gathered at Longwood in Victoria over Easter for the 2025 Australian Combined Driving Championships. The event was hosted by the Longwood Carriage Driving Club on behalf of the Australian Carriage Driving Society and featured some of the best driving talent in the country.

The Riddells Creek Pony Club Easter Horse Trials, held at Candlebark in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges, is always one of the most popular events of the season. Established in January 1954, the club is one of the seven founding members of the Pony Club Association of Victoria and has a long history of running quality events for pony club and open riders that want to train young horses over good courses.

You have to admire an agricultural show that has been around since before the telegraph was connected. Crookwell in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales held its first show in 1879 and 146 years later it is still a showcase for the state’s finest horses.

Croydon is one of the state’s classic old agricultural shows. It has had three homes, first in the old Croydon sports ground, then for a while at the Royal Melbourne Showground and lately at the Yarra Glen Pony Club ground. After hearing the forecast for extremely hot weather for the weekend, the Croydon committee discussed how to proceed with the show.

Spring is in the air and with the Olympic dressage watched and rewatched, inspiration has flourished. New, young horses and ponies are out and about in the dressage arenas all around the country. Boneo Park’s August competition held over two days had it all.

Phoebe Roche has been chosen as part of the eight-person team to compete at the 2024 Virtus Open European Equestrian Championships in the UK ... It's been a long road for Phoebe and her mother, Shaneen ... Shaneen sold her car and organised sausage sizzles and garage sales meaning Phoebe will be able to compete.

The dressage world is bubbling with excitement with the Olympic Games just weeks away and the final CPEDI qualifier in Australia begins this weekend at the Hawkesbury Dressage Festival at the Sydney International Equestrian Centre. Once this is done, the selectors and EA high performance people will get their heads together to choose the teams.

The 2024 Adelaide Equestrian Festival has again lived up to the hype, with record-breaking crowds and some of the finest displays of horsemanship in the country on show ... David Middleton had an event to remember, winning the International CCI5* on his homebred WEC In The Money after winning the event at Gawler 24 years ago.

While the big, elite events like Dressage and Jumping with the Stars and the Sydney Royal Easter Show were in full swing, the youngsters who could possibly feature in those events in the future were planning an assault on the Victorian State Mounted Games Championships.