The Western Districts Showjumping Championships (better known to many as the Buskers Festival) is traditionally held in Mortlake in January but EI put paid to that plan and the 2008 event was in danger of being lost from the calendar.

Except that the Caramut Riding Club (and a hardworking committee under the leadership of Chairperson Binnie Barclay) wouldn't take no for an answer and decided to run with the event, moving it from the unavailable Mortlake Grounds to the available Emu Creek Pony Club Grounds in Terang, Victoria - the date was taken to encourage those who had traveled to Mount Gambier for the Easter Showjumping to make a holiday of it and stay over in the Western Districts of Victoria and enjoy 6 out of 10 days of excellent jumping - and many did just that!

The event in 2007 was sadly washed out by drought breaking rains and in 2006 many left the January held event as bushfires raged through the area - and this year at around 6am on Saturday morning we wondered whether we would arrive at the grounds to find it cancelled due, again to drought breaking rains - but fortunately this was not the case!

The rain did make it a soggy start to the day but around lunchtime things cleared and the sun was seen for a while which helped to dry out the grounds which did hold up remarkably well.

The Pony Club grounds are lovely - enough room for three big arenas, three large warm up areas and still enormous amount of room for trucks and yards to be built. Perhaps the draw back is that there is no power on site which was okay for those with onboard generators but would make it hard for some.

The show had two Course Designers this weekend with John Wilsher building in the Main Ring and David Sheppard building in Ring 2 - Robbie McMaugh looked after the Freshmans ring and did a super job of it!

Peter decided a couple or more years ago to retire from Judging after 30 years in the job and he has been sorely missed ever since! When he first made noises about chucking it in plenty begged him to stay and he did stay on a little longer but in the end he decided (for health reasons) to give it up.

But Peter has certainly never been forgotten and is still greatly missed - his humour combined with professionalism guaranteed jumping rings rang smoothly but were still fun when he was in charge!

But Pete has thrown away showjumping for touring around the country in his magnificent "glass roofed" car which is one of only two in Australia and dates back to the 40's - and sadly for us the happy smiles on Pete and Di's faces tells the story - the one where he doesn't return to showjumping!

They did however join everyone for dinner on Saturday evening and many a story was told and many laughs were had - it was fabulous to see Mr and Mrs Kemp looking so happy and at least they know we all still remember them and still miss them both!

So on to the jumping - the first class of the show was the C&D Grade which saw not only a cast of thousands lining up for starters orders but 22 combinations went through to the jump off so making it into the top 6 placinsg was going to take good clear jumping in fast times and that was exactly what won the class.

The first clear jump off round came from youngster Toni Scattergood and the very cute chestnut DJ West - pictured below left - who stopped the clock at 48.19secs as they were third combination out of the starters gate.

Following straught on after Deb was Briony Harris riding the Mark Nichols owned Ambit - pictured right - and they recorded a super clear round in 44.08secs to take provisional lead at this early stage.

Trevor Marsh and the handsome chestnut Larrikin - pictured below left - were next to record clear jumping and with their time of 44.39secs they slotted in behind Briony Harris to take provisional second at about the halfway mark.

The very tall grey Nordic Fox, with the unusual style was ridden to perfection by Nicole O'Shaugnessy - pictured above right - to a clear round which stopped the clock at 47.34secs pushing DJ West and Wondaree Flirt down a peg, but the race wasn't run yet!

Following Nicole was te inform Ingrid Kimpton and PS Monet - pictured below right - who recorded a slow clear round which at this stage would see them just out of a placing

Amanda Barclay and Ain't Misbehaving recorded a lovely clear round but at this late stage in the class their time of 50.15secs left them out of the placings this time and the same fate waited for Kristy Bruhn and Railing Jack who also jumped a lovely celar round but in 49.29secs they were not taking a bow.

Last out, all the way from Shepparton in Northern Victoria, Stewart Abrahams and Koyuna Roo - pictured below left - and they completed the course beautifully leaving everything in place and stopping the clock at 45.95secs.