By Stephanie Muir

RENOWNED cross-country course designer Craig Gordon wants to provide Wagga with a course that will give budding horses a chance to taste the elite level on an even playing field.

Gordon is designing the cross-country course for the Wagga Horse Trial One Day Event at Charles Sturt University on Saturday.

The event will host a handful of the biggest names in equestrian, among them Sydney 2000 Olympic Games gold medallist Stuart Tinney and Beijing Olympic Games silver medallist Shane Rose.

Rose and Tinney are expected to not only bring their star mounts, but also their up-and-coming prodigies, to the city.

"Shane Rose is bringing up to 12 horses in the trunk, and is expected to ride at least five of them, so it will be a big day for him," he said.

"There are six different grades from newcomers to the top level," he said.

"These riders could have a horse in every grade."

Gordon is in the process of building a course that will be testing, while also offering the opportunity for young horses to be blooded at the event.

"I think the course will be pretty much on par with previous years, it may be a little bit softer in parts, actually," he said.

"We want to give the young up-and-coming horses ready to come up to the next level a good start, where they have a confident round at a higher level."

Gordon said the course would still present a huge challenge to horse and rider.

"There are parts that have toughened up, but the water jump, which is always very difficult, has been softened up a little bit," he said.

This is the first time Gordon has been given full responsibly for the design and construction of the course.

"I have just sort of assisted in the past, Hunter Doughty was the one that usually designed the course but he is riding this year," he said.

"We haven't made a lot of changes yet, because before we can we have to rebuild old jumps that have gone past their use-by date.