Eventing Wairarapa saves best for last

Eventing Wairarapa's annual staging of the national one-day championships is about
to come to an end.
They have successfully staged this premier competition at Tauherenikau for the past eight years but this coming weekend will be the last time it is held here, or at least in the foreseeable future.
Chairperson Tinks Pottinger said the decision to give up the hosting rights was two fold.
Firstly, it was based around the belief it was time for a venue change, and secondly, Eventing Wairarapa were keen to focus more on providing opportunities for locally-based competitors.
"We've had them long enough, it makes sense to move them on and give other regions the chance to hold such an important competition,", she said.
Pottinger said when Eventing Wairarapa first held the championships the idea had been to build a course of the required specifications at Tauherenikau and host them for three years.
Stretching that to eight years had meant a lot of hard work for a relatively small group of people and the time had arrived to move in another direction."Who knows, we may hold the championships again but right now it's not on the agenda," she said.
Plans instead are for Eventing Wairarapa to replace the national one-day championships with another competition which also provides for the three disciplines of dressage, cross country and show jumping.
The difference, however, will be that the emphasis there will be on providing classes for the likes of pre-novice and training class riders rather than for the elite competitors who are designated as advanced class.
In fact, Pottinger suggested that the latter may be done away with and a course built especially to suit those riders and horses who were lower graded.
This, she believes, will help solve the problem of many local riders, in particular, not contesting the national one-day championships simply because they considered the course to be too difficult for them.
"Give them a course which isn't so testing and you can bet they'll be there in big numbers," she said.
On a personal note, Olympic medallist Pottinger and her husband Andy-who is convenor of the organising committee- intend to stand down from the Eventing Wairarapa committee after this weekend's action.
Again there is nothing sinister behind the move , rather it is based mainly on a desire to ease the demands of constantly travelling to Tauherenikau from their Tinui home. That plus the fact that Tinks Pottinger is keen to see a greater input from South Wairarapa people on the committee because that area is now the "hub" of eventing in the Wairarapa region.
"It makes sense to have people living close to the venue more heavily involved in the organisation process and hopefully we can manage that," she said.