IT’S A DULL and dreary May bank holiday Monday but the weather is the least of the worries for 153 competitors as they prepare for a busy day that will see them – hopefully – jump three times in a bid to qualify for the Discover Ireland Dublin Horse Show in August.
The venue is Raheen na Gun Stud in Kilkenny and the event is known as the Leinster RDS Amateur Qualifier. It is one of four competitions that gives amateur riders the chance to qualify for Ireland’s biggest show-jumping event.
This is the first of the qualifiers in 2014 and, with just eight places up for grabs, competition is expected to be fierce with well over 100 – some riders compete with more than one horse – disappointed competitors leaving today knowing they’ve just three chances left to reach Dublin this year.
After round one, there’s a sense of just how testing the course is with just 42 competitors going clear around the 11 fences set at 1.05m. When the fences are raised by 5cm in the second round, the field is further diminished with just 12 combinations posting another clear round.
By the time the jump-off is complete, there are just five riders left with unblemished records, one of whom is Yvonne Brady who has qualified for Dublin for the fourth time and for the second time on Best Doll.
“I’m delighted to have qualified for Dublin,” Brady tells TheScore.ie.
“I’ve been trying to qualify for over a decade and the competition gets better every year.
“When I started out a lot of the horses were what we call an Irish sports horse but now that’s changed and the quality of the horse people are jumping with has improved.
“On top of that, ten years ago a lot of us would have been self-taught but more and more people are getting outside lessons and you can see that in the quality at shows.”
Show-jumping is in Brady’s blood, related as she is to the great Tommy Wade. The Tipperary man and his horse Dundrum won Grand Prix and Nations Cups around Europe in the sixties, including the Aga Khan in 1963.
The same year Wade, who was inducted into the Show-Jumping Ireland Hall of Fame in 2013, won all five international classes at the Dublin Horse Show. As Chef D’Equipe of the Irish team he presided over 30 Nations Cup wins at some of the biggest shows in the world including Rotterdam, Hickstead and Aachen.
Not only that but Brady’s father and husband are both involved in horses so she has been surrounded by them almost since birth.
She has no aspirations to compete at her grand uncle Wade’s level though.
“It’s very difficult to make a living from jumping,” she says.
“At the level I compete, there’s no financial reward and it costs €100 before you even leave the yard just to put diesel in the van to get to a show.
“On top of that you have the farrier (the person who shoes the horses), the vet, feed, etc so most people, myself included, do it just for the love of the sport.”
There’s also an awareness among the amateurs that professionals operate at a different level with Olympians jumping fences in excess of 1.60m (5’3″ in old money).
However, it’s the chance to compete in the same arena in Dublin that drives them on.
“I’m not nervous about Dublin.
“I was the first time but now I get excited by it. It makes traipsing all over the country every second weekend worth it.”
In advance of the Dublin Horse Show, Brady will compete Best Doll just enough to “keep her fresh” but not so much as to risk an injury with the rules stating the horse you qualify at an event like the one in Kilkenny must be the one you jump with in Dublin.
With just 5% of those showing up for qualifiers like the one in Kilkenny making it to the RDS, I put it to the Laois based Brady that qualifying is an achievement in itself. She makes it clear she’s not just there to make up the numbers though.
“I’d love to win but we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully we’ll go clear and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
