Couple make jump to build own business

Course builders Chris Lever, left, and Lisa Bauer, stand in front of memorial fences to Wairarapa men Hamish McLennan and Hamish Cameron, who also constructed eventing courses. PHOTOS/LYNDA FERINGA

A Masterton-based company specialising in eventing courses leapt its first two-star hurdle at the Eventing Wairarapa Spring Horse Trials at Clareville over the weekend.

Chris Lever two months ago left his "day job" as a supermarket storeman and launched his firm C.Lever Crosscountry, alongside partner Donna Harley, who is a dedicated part-timer with the firm while also working for KiwiRail.

The couple had a long history of competition eventing, but had since laid down their reins and taken up tools of the course-construction trade instead.

Eventing is an equestrian triathlon, in that it combines three different disciplines in one competition set out over one, two, or three days, depending on the length of courses and number of entries.

Mr Lever had been for the past year working on the Clareville course for the two-day meet, he said, which features about 90 jumps that, for the first time this year, also include a track at national two-star or intermediate level.

The construction costs for the new jumps topped about $30,000, Mr Lever said, and he had worked fulltime at the site since launching his company.

The jumps comprise a full range of inventive and imaginative challenges that progress from "grassroots" level at 65cm in height to the two-star height of 115cm. The three-star or advanced level jumps are 120cm in height. "It's not just the height as you progress, it's the spread as well. The spread gets massive," Mr Lever said.

"We added the two-star track at Clareville this year, which is a level up for us, and next year we hope to do a three star, which is the highest level in New Zealand."

Ms Harley said the elite level tracks will bring both top-notch competitors and greater crowds of spectators to Wairarapa.

"So we'll have all the top riders from throughout New Zealand come to that, which will draw extra people to little old Clareville. It'll be great."

The contest this weekend had attracted a record entry pool of more than 160 competitors from throughout the country and was the second annual horse trials at Clareville since Eventing Wairarapa shifted its competition course from Tauherenikau.

Two of the permanent crosscountry features at the Clareville complex were groyne-style "grand gateway" jumps that bear plaques and stand as a memorial apiece to long-time Eventing Wairarapa course-builders Hamish McLennan and Hamish Cameron, he said.

Other jumps, which had already drawn praise from national judges as "innovative and right on the mark", include fish carved into the jump beam, a scale model truck made to order for heavy transport sponsors, dog kennels complete with chainsaw-carved hounds, cartoon characters like Bogor, a carved and wheeled horse-drawn cart, and even a jump called Clareville Shire that was named as such because "hobbit hole" was trademarked.

Mr Lever had sponsored the water jump for Eventing Wairarapa, which was always on the search for more jump sponsors, and he hoped film-maker Peter Jackson would look favourably on his work and perhaps sponsor the shire challenge.

Mr Lever had, over three years, built tracks under John Nicholson at the New Zealand Horse of the Year contest and had also this year completed practice tracks at Hamilton.