Lorna Keogh

KILDARE-based riding club Winterdown and the Gaffney family celebrated this week on the back of winning the West Leinster region team show jumping qualifier. This qualifier, held at Coilog EC on May 10th, is one of eight which will be held throughout the country. This win has earned Winterdown their qualification to the Horseware 2015 Team Show Jumping Championships which will be held in August at the RDS Dublin Horse Show.

Twelve riding clubs in the West Leinster region were represented by 19 teams of riders who were declared for the two-round competition over a 12-fence track built by Gueorgui Gueorguiev at Chris Byrne’s Kildare venue.

Riders graded intermediate and above for show jumping competed either over a 90cm or 1m track across two separate competition rounds with the team member score with the highest faults in each round discarded. Riders were judged by Jan McKenna and Kitty Benson and the track proved challenging with many returning with jumping or time faults.

At the end of the second round of jumping just two of the 19 teams, Winterdown Green and Moyglare, remained on zero faults meaning that the result would be decided by a jump-off over a shortened track against the clock by the two team captains.

Jessica Smyth from Moyglare Riding Club was first to take on the jump-off course with Something Different. The pair took some very tight turns and angled approaches over the shortened track and set the standard to beat with a clear round in 33.97 seconds.

Second into the jump-off was Bernice Gaffney, captain of Winterdown Green. With the pressure on, she and Knockalane Sylvano delivered another fast-paced clear round in 33 seconds to win the competition. The winning team were presented by the regional committee with rugs and rosettes from sponsor Horseware.

While Winterdown Green (Sisters Marcella and Bernice Gaffney, Tony Murphy and Kate Deegan) have earned their place in the championships, Moyglare Riding Club still have another chance to qualify.

This second place for Moyglare (Marie Dunne, Sarah Farnan, Zazel McCarthy, Jessica Smyth), has earned them a place in the wild card qualifier. This wild card qualifier is held at the AIRC Riding Clubs Festival in Stradbally in June. The wild card qualifier will be attended by the club who place second in each regional qualifier and the winner of this qualifier will join the other winning teams at the championships in August.

Two West Leinster Region clubs, Rathfarnham and Cill Dara, had teams in this competition for the first time ever in 2015. Cill Dara RC placed fourth in the qualifier and team members Anita Craven, Una Holohan, John Harkin and Jenny Heffernan were delighted with a great result in their qualifier debut.