Following the completion of the Australian World Cup League event in Sydney three days ago, the EFA have announced their new panel of National Showjumping Selectors.

Jamie Coman stays on as National Showjumping Coach and Stephen Lamb retains his position as Chef d'Equipe.

Peter Cooke, Leeson Sirett and Graham Watts are again on the selection panel with the addition of a "new kid on the block", John Wilsher frm South Australia.

John Wilsher is an International Course Designer and has been very active in showjumping in Victoria and South Australia for many years. He is well qualified for the job and it is great to see a new face on the panel.

John was the Course Designer and one of the organisers of the recent, very successful Australian National Championships held for the first time in Mount Gambier, where he had a chance to see, up close, the best Australia has to offer.

These are now the people charged with the decision as to which combinations Australia should send to the World Championships in Germany in 2006, or whether Australia would be better to send nobody and rather regroup for the Olympic Games in Beijiing in 2008!

The final event in the Australian World Cup series saw Leopoldo Palaccios building and the win went to New Zealand Dairy farmer Robert Steele and Gospel from Hawera in New Zealand. Steele jumped clear through the first round and collected four faults in the second round on a course which saw verticals sitting at 1.60m but the oxers were smaller and did not seem to have the width seen in International competition. The open water caused many of the faults collected by the riders and horses but time was not an issue, as it had been on previous days jumping - Palaccios was quite generous with the time on this track.

Rod Brown, for Australia, riding Mr Burns took second place with 8 faults collected and South Australian Young Rider Kristy Bruhn took third place with 12 faults. Victoria's 18 year old, Jamie Kermond and Stylish King took 4th place with 12 faults in the first round and just four faults in the second round finishing with 16 faults.

The New Zealanders won the teams event finishing with 44 points from the Australian's result of 88 points. With the excellent results at the Athens Olympics for New Zealand, they are obviously "doing something right" as they continue to climb the International ladder - perhaps Australia might think of looking at what has changed there and learn from their experiences - it is obviously working!

With results like these one would have to question the viability of sending a team to the World Equestrian Games, which is only 18 months away. One would think that those riders hoping to be selected for this event would be heading to the northern hemisphere in the next couple of months to start by "cutting their teeth" perhaps on some of the National Grand Prix circuits in Europe. Ireland and/or the UK before taking on such a big task as the World Championships!

Time will tell and the Selectors will no doubt be spending much of their time deep in discussion about what is the best "plan of attack" and after the appeals etc. prior to the Athens Olympic Games I have no doubt they will be making sure that if they decide to send a team the selection process will be clear and understandable by riders, owners and the general public - we wish them the best of luck in this task!