AT the FEI WBFSH Jumping World Championships for Young Horses in Lanaken this September, there were 218 entries in the five-year-old section. Two qualifying rounds reduced the field to a start list of 38 for the final, where two further rounds, the second of which was set to an optimum time, would decide the winner.

The youngest rider in the class, 16-year-old Sam Widger, rode Vintage van de Heyveldhoeve (Kasanova de la Pomme x I Am Moerhoeve’s Star) to a double clear within 0.14 seconds of this optimum time to claim his first world championship title.

“It was an unbelievable week,” says the Waterford native about his Lanaken experience. “We went with three horses. I had Reider and Vintage in the five-year-olds and BP Wishes in the six-year-olds. I qualified Vintage and Wishes for their finals, and I was lucky enough that Vintage ended up jumping very well that day. She won the five-year-olds, and then BP Wishes was double clear in her final to finish fourth there too.”

The 2026 championships were the first where the jump-off format was replaced by the use of an optimum time, so had Sam trained to the pace required? “I didn’t train for it at all really,” he says. “It’s the kind of thing where you trained the way you would train for any other class. I didn’t practise the pace at home; I just practised jumping clear rounds and getting the rideability.

“In the second round of the final,” he continues, “I was lucky enough that I was jumping near the end. We had watched a good few people jump and I kind of knew where I needed to be in certain places. I had good eyes there. Brian Cassidy kept a good eye on the whole competition, so he kind of judged me through it.”

Sam could see the scoreboard, which displayed the clock, at certain points during his round. “When I landed at the back of the double, I knew I had to be there on 38 seconds. I think I was there on 39; I was too slow and I moved up. Anyway, then I was going and I was too far ahead of myself. They all shouted ‘whoa’ and I had to take a pull, and that’s how I got so close to the time.”

The ‘they’ Sam refers to include the aforementioned Cassidy, Greg Broderick, Taylor Vard, Clem McMahon and Ethan Ahearne, and he concludes: “The help I got from the people around me was massive.”

Sam Widger and Vintage van de Heyveldhoeve after winning the five-year-old championship at Lanaken. Pictured with (l-r) Gavin Doyle, Greg Broderick, Colm, Paul and Robert Widger, Gary Ryan, Cheryl Broderick, Max Doyle \ Trace Media

In the genes

While Sam’s achievements in Lanaken and elsewhere are remarkable, it’s perhaps not surprising that he is forging a successful career in the equestrian world given his family’s track record. He can count a Grand National winner among his forebearers in Joe Widger, who won at Aintree in 1895 riding Wild Man From Borneo, while his father Robert won the Grade 1 Tingle Creek Chase in 2001 aboard Flagship Uberalles for Philip Hobbs.

More recently, Robert enjoyed success as a trainer, particularly with his wife Paula’s Treacysenniscorthy. During the 2019/2020 National Hunt season, Treacysenniscorthy won five times from 13 starts, earning €116,475 in prize money and, around this time, a young Sam could be found riding out on Woodstown Strand before school. Robert’s last winner as a trainer came at Punchestown in 2023, when Indie Belle won the Close Brothers Irish EBF Mare Handicap Steeplechase.

When and why did the Widger family’s focus switch to show jumping? “I didn’t stop training to follow Sam into show jumping,” says Robert. “I did it to drive him.

"If you want to be successful, you have to go all in and, if you don’t put time into your kids, then they don’t get the full value out of what they’re doing. As your kids get more competitive, you enjoy their success and, if we didn’t do this as a family, it just wouldn’t work.

“It got to the point where it was either one thing or the other,” continues Robert. “When Ger O’Neill started helping us, we decided we were doing this properly and committing to getting better at it. Then Joe McMahon had the pony for us to try to get to the Europeans, Western Ranger, and it became a full-time commitment to have everything right.”

Sam’s championship debut was at the 2024 Children on Horses European Championships in Kronenberg, where he rode Jerenice Dysenbeeck Z (see opposite page). Later that year, he partnered the KEC Maximum Joe-sired Western Ranger to win the Grand Prix at Southview in the UK, before the combination went on to compete at the London International Horse Show that December. They made a strong start in 2025, jumping on winning Nations Cup teams in Opglabbeek and Hagen before being selected to the Irish team for the FEI Pony European Championships in Le Mans.

Le Mans was where Sam won his first championship medal, as part of the team which claimed silver behind Britain, and he followed this up promptly with another second place, this time in the 148cm National Championship at the Dublin Horse Show. “Being second with Western Ranger in the main arena is probably my best Dublin moment so far,” says Sam.

Sam Widger and BP Bon Jovi at the FEI Jumping European Championship for Ponies in Le Mans \ foto-job.com

So, how did the 16-year-old come to have three rides in Lanaken for Greg Broderick’s Ballypatrick operation? “Greg had the pony BP Bon Jovi,” he explains, “and he was looking for someone to ride him. Greg and Ger are friends, so we went up there with Ger to ride the pony, and then we kept on going.”

His partnership with the eight-year-old BP Bon Jovi (Nirvana V x Tresor) developed quickly, and together they jumped a double clear to help the Irish team finish second in the Nations Cup at Hagen, Germany, in 2026 on their way back to Le Mans to contest Sam’s third European championship. There, they claimed the rider’s second team silver medal before finishing fifth in the individual final.

How does Sam handle the pressure of jumping on teams and riding for owners? “There’s always a bit more pressure when you’re riding for other people or on teams, not just for yourself, but I’ve been jumping a lot now so I’ve had a lot of practice at it. I just keep calm, try not to overthink it and ride like I would in any other round.”

Finishing school

Now Sam, who is in fifth year in De La Salle College in Waterford, attends school three days a week. “I go up to Ballypatrick on Wednesday evening, and I’m there Thursday to Sunday riding. I ride around seven horses a day. Greg gives me a lot of coaching and Brian Cassidy is up there; he helps me a bit too. Niamh [McEvoy] is unbelievable, and to ride beside her and other good riders like Harry Wood; it’s a massive help.”

Sam’s aunts, his mother Paula’s sisters Elaine and Triona, are both secondary school principals and are partially responsible for helping him find this balance between school and show jumping. “Last year for his Junior Cert,” says Robert, “Triona would give him grinds one or two nights a week and on Saturday evenings when we’d get finished early.”

Sam skipped transition year and Triona initially suggested that Sam drop to five subjects ahead of his Leaving Certificate and focus on fitting them in from Monday to Wednesday. When Paula went to the principal of De La Salle, however, he suggested that Sam should wait until sixth year to pick his five focal subjects. “If you drop them now, it’s not as if you can take them back up,” says Robert, “so it’s better to wait until he fully understands what’s involved in each of them.”

Sam recently received his Junior Cert results, and he passed everything including several higher-level options. His woodwork project is sitting on the kitchen island as we speak. “I just want him to do his Leaving Cert,” says Paula.

“I think it’s good for their development to stay with kids their own age, because when you’re in the horse world you’re surrounded by adults. And anyway, it’s only two years.”

“Whatever anybody wants to do,” says Robert, “you’re going to stand behind them. The most important thing is to keep improving through the years, and with Ger and Greg; I mean they’re the two best trainers in Europe, never mind Ireland. Their results speak for themselves.”

Sam’s 14-year-old twin brothers, Colm and Joe, are also following in the family tradition of equestrian success and, like Sam, they developed their skills out hunting with the Woodstown Harriers. “The foundation for myself and my siblings when we started on ponies was hunting with the Woodstowns,” says Robert. “It was one thing the boys got from the start, and it’s the best grounding any kid could get. It’s an unbelievable way to make a rider.”

Joe , Colm, Sam, Paula and Robert Widger out hunting in 2021 with the Limerick Harrier \ Catherine Power

“If I go out with them,” says Paula, “I don’t see them all day. They’re gone with their friends; one kid will push another on and they all end up flying. The kids are really welcome with the Woodstowns and the huntsman will have them up the front with him, opening wires for them and encouraging them.”

“When we were kids,” says Robert, “the likes of Francis Connors and Neilus O’Donoghue were hunting with us and they were phenomenal riders. Then there was James Connors Smyth and now there’s Lucy Kent and all Davy Russell’s kids too. Hunting 100% punches above its weight for children to learn to balance and to make young ponies. It’s invaluable; nothing will beat it.”

Producing ponies

“All the ponies we produce start off out hunting too,” he continues, “straight after they’re backed. It makes them brave and it puts manners on them.” While Sam is making the transition to horses and senior ranks in Ballypatrick, breeding and producing ponies for sport is the main focus of the family business at home at Poynstown Sport Horses.

“At the moment, it’s ponies that we try to concentrate on the most,” says Robert, “for the simple reason that it’s very hard to do both. If you’re going from ponies one weekend to horses the next, you end up getting nothing done at home.

“We just try to concentrate on ponies, and most of the ponies we have, we produce ourselves. To date, we’ve always travelled with Sam, but that will probably happen less in future and we definitely hope to travel with the two boys. They have two years left in ponies and we have a great team of young ponies coming through.”

Among these is the home-bred seven-year-old Poynstown Penny (Kippure Little Big Chief x Cruise On), with whom Joe finished eighth in the 138cm National Championship at the Dublin Horse Show this year before earning several good placings at the SJI National Pony championships in Mullingar. “He got into the main arena and he just had four faults,” says Robert. “He had a great time up there too.”

Joe agrees: “It was good fun. Dave Maguire helped me. I came around to the third fence a bit deep, knocked an unlucky pole and she jumped great after that.”

Another is the seven-year-old Poynstown Hero (Celtic Hero B Z x Diamond Serpent), whom the Widgers bought as an unbroken four-year-old from Longford breeder Gearoid Mulligan. Poynstown Hero won the Pony Discovery Final at Millstreet as a four-year-old, relegating Sam’s European ride BP Bon Jovi into second place on that occasion, and this summer finished sixth in the 148cm National Championship at the RDS. “He had the last fence down, but he was three seconds faster than everything else in the class.”

“We like to see our ponies do well for people when we sell them on,” says Colm. “It’s very important.” They reference the 12.2hh Creevelea Firefox who, now ridden by Rory McBride, qualified for the Mini-Major Relay at the London International Horse Show last year, as an example. Sam sometimes helps Rory at shows and, during the summer, he also helped Finn Russell in Ballypatrick, in the run-up to Dublin.

Is coaching something Sam sees being part of his future? “It wouldn’t be the main thing I’d be looking into, but it might be part of it,” he says. “I’d like to work in Ballypatrick when I’m finished school,” he continues. “I admire the way Greg starts with young horses and is able to produce them through to the top. I’d like to be able to stay in Ireland and do something similar.”

And the long-term goal? “Sure, I’d say the Olympics would definitely be the main goal. I’m always trying to work towards that.”

For now, though, there is the FEI European Jumping Championships for Juniors, which will be held in Poland next year, to aim towards. Sam says he hasn’t yet identified the horse he’ll campaign towards selection, but selection is definitely part of the plan. In the meantime, he picks out the stallions Abba Van De Vromboutshoeve Z (Asca Z x Calato) and Reider (Vangelis S x Vleut) as horses whose futures he’s excited about. “I brought Reider to Lanaken,” he says. “He had a pole down each day, but he’s definitely one to watch for the future.”

So is Sam.

Sam Widger and Vintage van de Heyveldhoeve won the five-year-old championship at the FEI WBFSH Jumping World Breeding Championship For Young Horses in Lanaken, Belgium \ Hippo Foto Media/ Dirk Caremans

Jerenice Dysenbeeck Z

“SHE’S been a great servant to us,” says Robert of the 13-year-old mare Jerenice Dysenbeeck Z (Jamar D’Ysenbeeck Z x Andiamo). “We bought her in from England for Sam to do Children on Horses and all three of the boys have ridden her in Dublin. It was always the agreement that Joe would ride her last year and Colm would ride her this year.”

Sam rode Jerenice on his team championship debut at the FEI European Championships for Children on Horses in 2024, before winning the individual championship at this level at the Dublin Horse Show a couple of weeks later. In 2025, Joe qualified the mare for Dublin and the combination were part of the winning Children on Horses team there, while in 2026 she was in the line-up once again, this time taking third in the individual championship ridden by Joe’s twin Colm.

Most recently, Colm contested the FEI Jumping Youth Nations Cup Final in Peelbergen with Jerenice, where they finished second in a qualifier and were part of the Irish team that took third in the 1.25m Challenge Class, an experience which Colm picks out as one of his favourite so far.