Recognised around the world for their horsemanship, equestrian expertise, and event organisation, Heath and Krissy Harris (of Harris Entertainment) are developing their new, expansive and utterly stunning property “Stonewall Farm” on the Central Coast.
As one of the world's elite liberty horse trainers, Heath has 40+ years’ experience across almost all equine disciplines (including training equine stars for international films); Heath’s also an Australian Master Saddler and owner of the Hawkesbury River Saddle Company.
Krissy boasts decades of equine experience; professionally training horses for film, television and world-class competitive showjumping - representing Australia at the 1997 World Cup Final and 1998 World Championships. Krissy’s experience also extends to organising equestrian events – the closest to home being the recent Stonewall Showjumping Competition including a Grand Prix event.
According to Equestrian NSW, Stonewall Farm is “on a scale which is hard to get your head around… will be a game changer for jumping and the broader equestrian community”.
Whilst creating their expansive new arena, the Harris’ knew that they needed to include a synthetic surface; as it would be the only way to ensure that the footing would be ‘all weather’ and, most importantly, provide a safe, performance enhancing surface for horses to train and compete on. Accordingly, knowing Marty McInerney’s expertise, they reached out to GeoPro Footing to determine the ideal geofabric blend that would provide the ultimate arena surface.
Repurposing sand existing on the property (from the creation of a new dam), we were challenged with creating a bespoke GeoPro Footing blend to be supplied on-site for Heath and his team of contractors to install. And, with the scheduled Stonewall Farm Competition just weeks away, time was of the essence!
After inspecting Stonewall Farm and understanding the equine disciplines that would be using the arena, Marty was able to determine the ideal type and quantity of GeoPro Footing required. Our team then set to work to produce the extraordinary quantity of geofabric required for an arena of this size.
With just days to go before the Stonewall Showjumping weekend, the arena surface was installed and picture perfect. And, despite only having three days to settle, the new bespoke GeoPro arena surface held up tremendously well throughout the two-day competition.
We look forward to our on-going collaboration with Heath and Krissy as Stonewall’s development continues to evolve into a truly magnificent equestrian venue.
