Historic victory for Olympian Johnstone

Johnstone and his warmblood gelding Borealis Centurion led from the start and were the only combination to produce a double clear round.

The Victorian was thrilled to take the inaugural title but became emotional when remembering his late friend Katherine Quilty who recently passed away after a battle with cancer.

"I came second in this class at the old show ground back in 1995 so it's been a while in between drinks.

"I can't help to feel a little bit emotional. All these guys I'm sure would agree, we put an awful lot into these horses and we do it for very little money. We love the sport.

"We're all wearing black armbands tonight for Katherine. We're a big family, we help each other, we work together and we're really sad to lose her," he said.

In second place was Brook Dobbin and his Hanoverian gelding Silvo, with only one rail down in the first round and clear and fast in the second round.

Third place went to Australian Young Rider Champion Tom McDermont and Statford Delight who were on track for a clear first round before they misjudged the final fence causing it to fall. The pair returned to the arena and produced a clear round in the second but were marginally slower than Dobbin and Silvo.

What was described as the biggest step forward Australian Showjumping has made in a long time, the CSI2* drew entries from all over Australia, and proved to be a crowd pleasing event amongst spectators. German course designer Werner Deeg succeeded in his aim to create a course to test all combinations