About Wayne Copping

Wayne Copping is a horse person. Having grown up on a large scale grazing and wool growing property in the South East, horses were part of everyday life combined with the management of stock and the running of the property.

Royal shows and local agricultural shows were always attended during Spring to Autumn, with the main discipline being show jumping. Wayne evented during the seventies with some success and because of his enthusiasm for the sport became involved with the Naracoorte Young Riders Three Day Event in 1975.

The next few years were spent in various roles including the position of Director and he went on to become the Designer in 1985. This appointment led to Wayne’s involvement as Assistant Course Designer and Project Manager for the cross country at the World Championships at Gawler in South Australia 1986. Ultimately work and travel commitments meant the phasing out of his competitive career.

He continued to pursue the business of eventing course design and construction building a comprehensive folio of events. Wayne was promoted to FEI International Course Designer in 1993 and is also now an FEI Candidate Technical Delegate. He also holds national accreditation as a dressage/jumping judge and jumping designer.

Personal Details

Eventing is one of our more popular equestrian sports with thousands of riders and horses going around a cross country course somewhere most weekends. It takes many people to organise an event and one of the most important people must be the course designer, the person responsible of getting horse and rider safely home in optimum time, while giving them a true challenge.

Wayne Copping from South Australia is such a course designer. Horses were a family affair in the Copping family which began with his grandfather who successfully showed horses. Wayne, as so many Aussie country kids, could ride before he could walk. It's this love for horses that brought him to become a course designer, after he found out he had an eye and ability for building cross country obstacles.

Although he started out designing the Naracoorte course, Wayne since then travelled the world learning and working side by side with the best.

Wayne tells: "I worked with Neil Ayer from the USA on the '86 World Championship course and I went to the USA and worked with Neil at Ledyard Farm. I like to think that Neil's philosophies me most in the way I design jumps. Neil was brilliant in designing long slow routes through obstacles, but always fair. He honed my skills as a course designer."

In the UK, Wayne Copping was part of the team in building the Blenheim Palace 3DE and then off to New Zealand for the Pukekohe 3DE. The list goes on, picking up events around Australia. In Western Australia Wayne revamped the Wooroloo ODE and designed and build the latest prestigious Brookleigh Equestrian Estate International 3DE.

Course builders have a huge responsibility in building a good course. They are a vital link of a whole process in developing a successful eventing combination.

"When I do seminars I try to impress that they are all part of a teaching process and the learning process of riders. It is not only the riders that have to go out and school their horses. They cannot progress through the grades unless you set the pre novice at the correct standard and the novice at the next standard, and so on. Quite often you see fences that are technically too difficult for the pre novice and should only be asked at novice level. It really stretches your imagination when you are doing four levels. I do a lot of courses throughout the year, and I try not to be repetitive."

Wayne is passionate about his designing and one of his benchmarks is safety first.
"I have built over the years close to 1500 jumps. Thousands of horses have jumped my obstacles each year. It gives you a great experience of how horses jump obstacles and how they shorten and lengthen, and the way you present the jump and the distances you can use."
It is this love for horses and attention to detail that developed Wayne Copping into one of the top course designers in Australia. Add to that the achievements at Olympic level of South Australians Gillian Rolton and Wendy Schaeffer, who both would have ridden more Wayne Copping courses then just about any one else, and you realise that Wayne is a master at his craft. Long may he build courses for our future Champions!