This past weekend 7-9th May  saw the  World Cup qualifier staged in Sydney. Leading  Australian based riders were out in force and Clark Johnstone and Jenna Mahoney flew  their horses over from NZ .
Chris Burton  really deserved his win on the  17 yo Warmblood mare Holstein Park Leilani , being the only combination to  finish on his dressage score of 46.5   Chris had no time penalties  XC   moving up from 4th place after dressage creating a nail biting finish in the SJing.  He will no doubt be hoping this fine performance will catch the selectors eye for WEG games selection later this year !!!
Winning going into SJ ring, Megan Jones on her Olympic mount Kirby Park Irish Jester sadly rolled a rail  to drop to 2nd ,   nearly pulling off her 2nd World Cup win this year . Oh so close ..........
NZer Clark Johnstone with his lovely TB gelding Orient Express  pulled up from 5th in dressage , to finish in 3rd place on 52.6 which is a wonderful result in such top class company.
To top off Clark's campaign, he had a super win taking out the  CIC** with Kolora Stud Secrets.  This is  a relatively new mount for Clark,  who  was originally from Australia, produced  to 3* level by Chris Burton and purchased by Clark end of 2009.  
Jenna Mahoney went well to finish 10th , with a few time faults xc and 2 rails Sjing to add  to her dressage score.

So Megan and Clark are leading the HSBC series   to date on 138  and 128 points  respectively. With  the new ranking system in place for 2010 they have a chance of sharing US$180,000 prize money at end of series .... however there are still 8 qualifier events  to come  ( see calender below )!!!