16 The road to the World Equstrian Games (WEG) has been a ‘prime mover’ for the Equestrian Australia Dressage Committee (EADC), and we have strengthened our relationship with High Performance (HP) over the past 12 months. The liaison has resulted in the appointment of Deborah MacNicoll as Australian Dressage Team Chef d’Equipe for all major Games, Championships and Tokyo 2020 Olympics. It also saw changes in the Dressage Selection Policy, which for the first time gave Australian-based riders the opportunity to qualify for WEG at nominated Australian-based events. This has seen two of our elite combinations; seasoned International campaigner Brett Parberry (DP Weltmeiser) and the team’s youngest member Alexis Hellyer (Bluefields Floreno) join our overseas campaigners Mary Hanna (Boogie Woogie) and Kristy Oatley (Du Soleil). It has also seen the formation of a Dressage High Performance Panel (HPP) to oversee the strategic direction for Dressage HP within the Equestrian Australia High Performance Plan, particularly regarding the domestic programme. 2018 has also bedded down a new sub-committee of the EADC, being the EA Dressage Para Equestrian Committee (EADPEC). This committee will be responsible for driving the promotion and development of Para Equestrian and Para Dressage nationwide and at all levels of participation. It will comprise state-based representation and provide support to the SDA’s on Para Equestrian and Para Dressage issues. EOI’s have been issued in anticipation of this being up and running by 1 January 2019. Rule changes dominate EADC business: whilst our ideal can best be expressed by ‘less is more’; rules are not static and changes happen rapidly in all aspects of the sport. Dress and tack are constantly coming before us and we thank Cathie Drury-Klein (Dressage Steward-General) and Elizabeth Owens for keeping us readily updated. We are fortunate to have experienced an intake of National and FEI stewards under the training programme implemented by Cathie Drury-Klein, and it is now a requirement for all major club events to have the oversight of a trained steward, as per our major National events. DRESSAGE Setting a new national freestyle point score record, Alexis Hellyer and ‘Blufields Floreno’ win the class with a score of 75.53%