Mackay North Pony Club holds ‘less formal’ dressage competition with bedtime stories theme

Mackay North Pony Club’s season is going out with a fun tradition, with competitors donning their favourite nursery rhyme costumes to compete in dress up dressage. Check out all the photos.

Goodbye to the strict dressage dress code of jacket, riding shirt and jodhpurs, and hello to Alice in Wonderland, Little Bo Peep and her sheep, and the minions on horseback.

The Mackay North Pony Club celebrated the end to its competitive season with “one last hurrah” - a teams event with the main prize being best dressed.

Club treasurer Tracey Camilleri said the themes and costumes were getting “ridiculous” each year, with the tradition dating back more than 15 years.

Abigail Lee as the Strawberry from the Very Hungry Caterpillar competing at Mackay North Pony Club's dressage teams competition, November 6, 2021. Picture: Matthew Forrest

“This club started the teams event in 2005, and it was a little different back then as in not so much costumes, but matching saddlecloths, shirts and stuff like that,” she said.

“That’s escalated and it’s getting bigger every year, some parents are very extreme in their costuming so the best dressed award is highly sought-after.”

Competitors range in age, with future Olympic hopeful Savannah Deacon one of the youngest at just six years old, and a team of dads who wanted to compete against their kids at the other end of the spectrum.

Camilleri said the event created great memories for competitors to look back on.

“A lot of the older kids who don’t ride anymore still say their best memories were of the team events,” she said.

“It’s a little less formal and a little more fun, the kids have a lot of fun with it.

“It has morphed into this massive costuming disaster for the parents, because as a mum I’ve got to come up with a new spectacular costume every year.”