Gothenburg Glory

With Brazil’s multi-gold medal winner Rodrigo Pessoa as Ireland’s new show jumping chef d’equipe, international championship wins were the target when he took the helm in March. As a reflection of Irish form, by June, we had no fewer than seven riders listed in the world’s top 50 – Bertram Allen (15th); Conor Swail (31st); Darragh Kenny (34th), Cian O’Connor (37th); Shane Sweetnam (41st), Billy Twomey (44th) and Denis Lynch (49th).

No wonder then that Pessoa’s teams had podium finishes at La Baule, Rome and Falsterbo to remain in Division I of the Nations Cup. At both Ocala and Wellington in Florida teams under the guidance of Michael Blake also proved unbeatable.

Undoubtedly Ireland’s moment of the year was claiming team gold at the Europeans. Denis Lynch, Cian O’Connor, Bertram Allen and Shane Sweetnam achieved Ireland’s second ever team gold medal in this event and on top of that O’Connor and Good Luck won individual bronze.

Pony power

Irish pony riders had an incredible year, starting with the Irish pony eventing team of Zara Nelson, Hannah Adams, Isabelle Comerford and Jennifer Kuehnle winning team bronze at the FEI European Championships for Ponies at Kaposvar in Hungary.

This fantastic result was followed by another incredible result for the pony show jumping team of Harry Allen, Kate Derwin, Abbie Sweetnam and Ciaran Nallon, who captured team gold for the first time.

The victories didn’t stop there. The show jumping team triumph was followed by an individual gold medal for Wexford’s Harry Allen and a silver medal for Kate Derwin. Harry Allen also became the first Irish person to win the prestigious Longines Rising Star award at the 2017 awards gala in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Special moments

In March, Kildare’s Judy Reynolds produced an outstanding performance with Vancouver K to take fifth place in the opening Grand Prix of the FEI World Cup Dressage Finals in Omaha, USA. Reynolds then produced a flawless Freestyle Grand Prix test to score 79.571% to finish in overall fourth.

Another wonderful performance that month must also be mentioned. That came from young Kate Derwin of Athlone as she not only won the pony Grand Prix at Fontainbleau but also gave a brilliant rendition of Amhrán na bhFiann. What a wonderful image for our country!

Another standout moment of 2017 was when the 1970s Irish show jumping team of Eddie Macken, Capt. Con Power, James Kernan and the late Paul Darragh were honoured by the Association of Sports Journalists in Ireland at the RDS in August, 40 years after the first of their three in-a-row Aga Khan victories at the venue.

Lanaken and Le Lion

Kilkenny show jumper Ger O’Neill won a gold medal in the six-year-old division of the FEI World Breeding Jumping Championships for Young Horses for the second year in a row at Lanaken in September, riding his own and Eamonn Murphy’s Columbcille Gipsy.

In early October, the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) Studbook was once again crowned the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) leading eventing studbook in the world for 2017. The ISH Studbook has topped the coveted eventing studbook rankings for an incredible 22 of the last 24 years.

Further cementing Ireland’s reputation for breeding top event horses, the ISH Studbook won another world title following the conclusion of the six and seven-year-old competitions at the World Championships for Young Eventing horses at Le Lion in France, a competition which attracts the cream of the crop in terms of young eventing horses. This year, four ISHs finished in the top 10 of the six-year-old division. In the seven-year-old competition, two ISHs went on to finish in the top eight.

As to the year ahead; for all disciplines Olympic qualification at WEG will be the prime focus.