Hororata Cross Country Course

A public meeting was held at Hororata on Tuesday, August 2nd 2022, regarding the closure of the Hororata Equestrian Cross Country Course. As well as Johnathon Crawford from Selwyn District Council (SDC) and the Hororata Reserve members a lot of other interested parties were also present - representatives from a variety of equestrian clubs as far away as Leeston that regularly use the Hororata facilities. Selywn, a rural Council, has, sadly, so few equestrian facilities. The following is information supplied to the Malvern News by Tony Herstell: A report was written regarding the state of the jumping course which has led to the temporary shutting down of the jumping course by SDC. The ‘Cross Country’ Course is, in reality, a set of small, not competitive, jumps through the Hororata Domain. It was noted, that the biggest disappointment was that the person that wrote the report didn’t engage with the people/ organisations of Hororata or the equestrian users of the Hororata grounds. Had either the people/ organisations of Hororata or the wider equestrian community been talked to and involved earlier then they could have remedied the situation extremely quickly themselves (possibly taking just a few jumps out of commission whilst they were brought up to scratch and then being returned to use). All this could have been achieved, to a standard acceptable to the Council, under direction from Andy Thompson, who is a competent course builder and in fact, a willing participant in the following plan. The SDC members agreed that they needed to conduct an internal review of the processes that had led to this breakdown in engagement to ensure that this will not happen again. Everyone agreed that the best course of action was to expedite the solution and not dwell on the past. So moving on, there is a now a plan in place. The Council will engage with a group from Go Hororata and users of the whole domain including the Cross Country Course (Hororata Riders Facebook Group members and others) to: 1. Review all the jumps for ‘safety’ (engaging the services of Andy Thompson and, possibly, other qualified people in the area). 2. Plan the ‘new’ placements for the restored Cross Country Course. 3. Open the Cross Country Course. 4. Initiate the long term management plan to ensure the upkeep of the Cross Country Course. Members of Go Hororata are, in parallel going to: 1. Move the existing safe jumps into a temporary new area so the ‘safe’ jumps can be used in a modest jumping area. 2. Put the sub-optimal jumps into a holding pen. 3. Put the ok/repaired/new jumps into their new placements (subject to the planning timelines above). The SDC will: 1. Take down and de-stump the

dangerous trees (that have been damaged in the recent weather) and other trees to clear the jumping course (and elsewhere as necessary). 2. Get indicative funding agreed as soon as possible to enable the re-opening of the Cross Country Course and provide an annual budget to allow for the management plan to ensure compliance in perpetuity. 3. Establish the final funding amount and get this approved and put into the

Council's annual budgets. It was very clear that the SDC members in attendance are committed to supporting ‘the little gem’ of the Hororata Domain and want to support the above plan to get the Cross Country Course open again in the shortest possible time period. Go Hororata Chair Craig Blackburn said, “from the committee’s perspective we are very disappointed the way the Council has initiated the course closure. “Annabel Freeman, a very experienced equine enthusiast is the community’s equine representative on Go Hororata. She was not asked to be involved by Council in facilitating this closure. “We are trying to work with the Council to have our equine facilities reopen as soon as possible,” Craig concluded. Council Reserves Operations Manager Jonathan Crawford said, “The Council has temporarily closed the jump Course at the Hororata following advice from Equestrian Sport New Zealand that the course was unsafe, and should be closed immediately to protect the safety of horses and riders. “The Council has agreed to close the Course until such a time as the jumps can be assessed and the ESNZ Facilities Strategy be completed. “We are committed to repairing the Course to make it safe. We will be working with community representatives and Equestrian Sport New Zealand to do this and on the ongoing maintenance of the track,” Jonathan concluded.

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