“It is challenging the different groups that use the equestrian grounds,” Camilleri said.

“We had dressage riders and western performance riders and sporting club riders all come together and do each others discipline and see how versatile we are over the whole day.”

Camilleri said the challenge involved trained dressage horses being put through obstacle courses, western performance horses put through very slow barrel races and sporting horses competing in very slow and gentle dressage events.

“Our youngest rider on the day was six-years-old, then we had some elderly riders. We have an over 40s age group which was highly contested with 18 riders in it,” Camilleri said.

She said there was even room in the event for an old nag.

“We had some very highly trained horses, down to some that are taking very nervous riders for a couple of days out,” Camilleri said.

“They don’t go too fast, but they certainly participate in every event going just as competitively as people who do their normal sport.”

She it had been a good family day out.

“We had teams for the different age groups, and all the kids were invited to come along and they all got ribbons at the end of the day. We ran a canteen there, so all of the parents got to help,” Camilleri said.

Cr Di Baker was one of the volunteer who worked in the canteen. Baker is council’s delegate to the equestrian council and said recent improvements to the centre, including new fencing and shade for the stands had been popular on the day.

“We’ve been very fortunate to get quite a large shading over the arena, and the seats were packed because there was a roof over it,” she said.

“The numbers of people using the ground is increasing as the grounds are being improved, and council does a really good job in improving the ground.”

Camilleri said the equestrian council is fundraising to build stables at ground, the next piece of infrastructure it thinks is needed and would be used by the increasing number of people using the ground.