Way wins dressage champs
Oakura’s Vanessa Way has again established herself as one of the country’s most successful dressage riders at the national dressage championships.
Held in Feilding, Way took a team of three horses to the event and came home with two championships and a reserve title.
With her stable star NRM Andreas, she held off a strong challenge from Waimauku’s Wendi Williamson and Don Amour MH to win the finale, the Grand Prix Freestyle by the narrowest of margins at just 0.01 per cent to secure the national Grand Prix Championship for the second time since 2014 when she partnered KH Arvan. Way said Andreas was really inexperienced at that level, but had trusted her and the pair pulled off a freestyle with a significant degree of difficulty to be awarded a score of 72.495 per cent from the panel of international of judges.
The freestyle resulted in Way and NRM Andreas being crowned the Bates National Grand Prix Champion and Burkner Medal winner for 2019.
Way also won the Advanced title on NSC Pronto and was runner-up in the Open Level 2 championship with Timbermill Prequil
Auckland’s Amy Sage, who is based at Ways’ dressage barn as a working pupil, won the International Young Rider division for riders under aboard RM All About Me. Another Oakura-based combination, Abbie Deken was reserve champion level 3 on Raewyn Passey’s imported horse Jembrae Rattle N Hum.