Grant Hughes Under Assault From All Sides.

Grand Hughes from Canberra has been a popular and successful rider at the top end of Australian showjumping for many years. Grant and wife, Heather also run a successful riding school, Forest Park, as well as produce showjumpers for the domestic and international market. Grant is a Canberra Royal Show Councilor and the man behind the now postponed Australian Showjumping Championships, which were to be conducted at the Canberra Showgrounds in October. Like a pinball, Grant has been clobbered, no matter which way he turned.

“ Where it’s hard with this, is not knowing what sort of time frame we are dealing with and it is not made clear enough what we have to do. I took some horses out west to get some points and was in lockdown at Condobolin for 14 days. I said to the DPI one day, show us in writing what we really have to do to get out of here and they couldn’t do that. When I pushed the point he got on to his boss and we were told to take their temperatures for five days, which we did, only to be told that we should have been taking them twice a day! So we had to stay for another two days. I’d like to see some guidelines and sit them up there so everyone can see what happens and what to do if you get EI and what happens if you don’t. It’s not rocket science.

“I went to a meeting today (21st) and we were told that we had to wash tyres, shower, change clothes, blow our noses, but I don’t understand why we have to do all that, here in Canberra, as we are in a clean zone and not going in and out of an infected zone. I think they are just preparing us for what might happen, and it is important to know what to do, but the organisation regarding the fight against EI is very hard to follow.

“I’m just sitting back, a bit overawed by the whole thing, just seeing your business almost come to a standstill. We run trail rides, give lessons, break in and train and produce jumpers for sale and the shows are a vital part of that. I have some showjumpers ready to go to Bahrain and Japan as soon as they can get mobile. Our business is only running at 40%, people can’t bring horses here and we can’t take the trail rides. We have another property at Murrumbateman, which is in NSW where we spell the horses. We had one founder out there and one with a foot infection and we could not bring them here to Canberra, we had to go back and forth to treat them each day. It’s been a month now and we have six full time staff and 15 permanent part time and you just can’t say to them, righto off you go, some have been with us for over 20 years. We have been in the business for 27 years and are established and can take a bit of a knock, but I do feel sorry for the younger ones trying to make a go of it.

“NSW said that on the 21st they would allow some movement in the green Zone, but the ACT are not up to date on the paper work. We may be allowed some movement next week and we are hoping to be able to start the trail rides again. We will be offering a ride one get one free incentive to get things moving. But I think it might take longer to get going again, as people may have turned to other activities in the meantime, like squash and golf etc”.

Australian Showjumping Championships Re Scheduled.
23rd September.

Australian Showjumping Championships organiser, Grant Hughes advised today that the much-anticipated event, originally scheduled for 11th-15th October, will be held on the Australia Day long weekend in January 2008. “We have just confirmed that we can have the showgrounds for that date and have the go ahead from the EFA. They will still be called the 2007 Championships and we are waiting on word from the FEI, whether or not we can still conduct an Olympic qualifier. That is of course if everything is right with this flu by then”.