A Decade in the Making: New Water Complex Coming to Adelaide's Victoria Park for 2027

Nearly ten years after the idea was first conceived, a new water jump is coming to Victoria Park/Pakapakanthi, the home of the Adelaide Equestrian Festival and sole CCI5* in the southern hemisphere.

The Adelaide Equestrian Festival has announced it will debut a new water complex within Victoria Park ahead of the 2027 edition of the event, a project first championed by former Event Director and dual Olympic gold medallist Gillian Rolton AM before her passing in 2017. Gillian, who ran the event (then the Australian International Three-Day Event) for a decade, remains one of the most significant figures in Adelaide’s history: she won team gold for Australia at both the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games, and Victoria Park itself hosted her state funeral following her death.

The Victoria Park Water Jump has been part of the Festival’s long-term vision for its home in the Adelaide Park Lands, and the organizing team have billed it as an important legacy project for both the Festival and the sport of eventing in Australia. Work on the project got underway prior to Gillian’s death, but was shelved amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced a three-year postponement of the event itself.

With the Festival now firmly re-established on the international calendar, preliminary work resumed in early 2025 in partnership with the City of Adelaide.

The new water complex has been designed to sit lightly on the landscape it occupies; a consideration that is an important part of the ongoing sustainability and future of the sport. The site is an existing cleared area within Victoria Park’s naturally undulating terrain, and for most of the year it will simply read as a grassed depression in the parkland. Only during the Festival itself will the complex hold water, using stormwater engineering and water-management systems built into the design.

Notably, the project does not require removing any trees or established vegetation, and organizers say it will not be affected by the new MotoGP circuit also being built within the park ahead of an anticipated November 2027 race — a project that is separately reshaping parts of Adelaide’s competition footprint (as EN reported when Clayton Fredericks was named the new CCI5* cross-country designer for 2027).

Adelaide Equestrian Festival Event Director Kirsty Withers called seeing the project move toward reality an emotional milestone.

“This is a project that has been close to a decade in the making,” she said. “Cross country is the defining discipline of our event and sport — a second water complex brings Adelaide’s course infrastructure in line with the world’s leading venues. To be realizing Gill’s vision ten years on is incredibly special.”

Kirsty added that the design philosophy centers on working with, rather than against, the existing parkland. “The site is already cleared and naturally depressed, allowing us to create something that presents as part of the grassed Park Lands year round and then transforms into a world-class competition feature during the Festival,” she said.

The new water jump arrives as Adelaide navigates a broader reshaping of its home turf. The Festival is working alongside the South Australian Government and the SA Motor Sport Board to ensure the 2027 event — set for April 15-18 — is delivered to the standard expected of a five-star competition while the park simultaneously accommodates MotoGP circuit work. A new event layout, which will see some temporary rejigging of the grounds’ layout for 2027, is in development to respond to the changes within Victoria Park, with organizers aiming to preserve the atmosphere and professional presentation the Festival is known for among competitors, spectators, partners, and traders.

It won’t be the first time Adelaide has had to adapt on the fly. “Our team is no stranger to adapting to disruption and change within the Adelaide Park Lands, with the Festival having successfully operated outside the traditional Victoria Park hub on a number of occasions throughout its history,” Kirsty said.

Adelaide Equestrian Festival Deputy Chair Karlene Maywald framed the project as part of a longer-range strategy to protect the Festival’s standing on the international calendar.

“The Adelaide Equestrian Festival is an iconic international event that has been successfully staged in the Adelaide Park Lands for more than 25 years,” she said. “The Victoria Park Water Jump represents an important investment in the Festival’s future. We are pleased to work collaboratively with the City of Adelaide, South Australian Government and SA Motor Sport Board on the opportunities ahead for the Festival.”

“Our focus is not simply on navigating the changes required for 2027, but on ensuring the Adelaide Equestrian Festival continues to thrive, evolve and strengthen its international standing for decades to come,” she added.

Adelaide remains the only CCI5* in the southern hemisphere and one of just six such events run worldwide (a number the sport hopes to see return to seven in 2027 with the re-addition of the Maryland 5 Star, under new management). The venue’s signature urban course, which famously threads through closed-down city streets within Victoria Park, has long been central to its identity. A second water complex would bring its cross country infrastructure closer in line with fellow five-star venues like Kentucky, Badminton, and Burghley, each of which features multiple water features on course.

The announcement also lands amid a broader changing of the guard at Adelaide. Longtime designer Mike Etherington-Smith is handing the CCI5* course design reins to Clayton Fredericks for 2027, while himself shifting into a Course Advisor role and Ewan Kellett stepping in as Assistant Course Designer. Clayton will now be tasked with incorporating the new water complex into his first five-star design, something he’s expressed to us that he’s quite excited to do.

More details on the new layout, and how the water complex will factor into the course itself, are expected as planning continues. In the meantime, tickets for the 2027 Adelaide Equestrian Festival, April 15-18, are available here.