Equestrian: Puhinui gets seal of approval

Top equestrian official Jennifer Millar holds the Puhinui three-day-event in such high regard that she says riders who perform well there should be able to foot it with the best in the world.

Millar is the technical delegate for the three-day event which started in Auckland yesterday.

It is her job to approve the cross country course and oversee all the technical and administrative aspects of the event.

"Puhinui is a world-class event," said Millar, who was born and bred in Canterbury but now lives in Te Puke.

"They have used it as a qualifier to the World Games and Olympics and I am quite sure that if a rider competes there and does well they know that they can go to the States and UK and compete on an equal footing with the rest of the world."

Puhinui is a three-star event. There is only one class higher, the four-star, of which there are just five events - Burghley, Badminton, Adelaide, Kentucky and the Olympics.

Millar's first four-star event was Burghley in 1998. Immediately after, she was appointed technical delegate for the Sydney Olympics.

"That is the highest honour you can have. I was the first woman and the first Australasian ever to be appointed to the Olympics as a technical delegate. I am still the only woman who has ever done it."

She said safety was one of the key things she looked for in a course.

"There has been a lot of work on safety issues because eventing is a risk sport, like rugby and other contact sports, so we have to make sure we do everything possible to ensure it is safe," Millar says.

"Then we have rules relating to the height and degree of difficulty. The degree of difficulty is something where experience tells you if it is too difficult for this level or too easy for this level. It is a fine line between getting the right degree of difficulty to test the riders and also make it very safe."

Her favourite course is, just quietly, Lexington, Kentucky.

"Kentucky is the home of the horse in the States. Kentucky Park is owned by the public really and everything is horse-orientated and for miles around that area everyone has horses. Five hundred thousand people come to that event on a cross country day - they just love it."

Millar's association with the sport goes back to when she was a girl growing up in Canterbury.

"I always rode. I did a lot of hunting, showing and dressage. Then I got involved with our own children, who were riding, which is where I got interested in course design."

She was the first international official appointed in New Zealand in 1984 and is now one of five directors of the International Equestrian Federation, for which she helps to run seminars around the world to try to keep standards similar.

She has also done a lot of work developing the sport in regions such as South Africa, Asia and South America.

But after two decades, Millar's time is coming to an end.

"I am retiring at the end of next year," she said. "It will be 20 years but gosh time flies."