HAVING had our timetable put out of kilter in 2016 because of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, all came right in the world again this year when the Dublin Horse Show took place in early August.

Before the gates opened to the public, the three-in-a-row (1977 to 1979) Aga Khan-winning team of James Kernan, Eddie Macken, Captain Con Power and the late Paul Darragh were honoured by the Association of Sports Journalists in Ireland and featured in the Irish Horse World of August 5th.

As Rodrigo Pessoa had targeted the European championships over the Nations’ Cup at Dublin, there was no Irish victory in this year’s Aga Khan trophy competition – much to the crowd’s disappointment. However, success for the USA’s all-female team garnered massive publicity for the sport beyond the world of show jumping.

Showing enthusiasts were a bit put out when the hunter championship was won by a British-produced heavyweight – even if he was Irish-bred. Mossy, a six-year-old Watermill Swatch gelding, was ridden for Trudi Deja by Helen Baker.

TEAM GOLD

From the start of 2017 through to the end, Irish show jumping riders were victorious throughout the world and this year it was good to see some new names added to the mix in the numerous, well-deserved reports which appeared in these pages.

And not just in the saddle, with Co Clare’s Michael Blake taking charge of the team of Kevin Babington, Cian O’Connor, Richie Moloney and Shane Sweetnam who won the first Nations’ Cup of the year in Ocala, Florida in February. The following month, O’Connor and Sweetnam were also on the Blake-managed team who, along with Paul O’Shea and Conor Swail, followed up by landing the Nations’ Cup at Wellington.

In April, Blake was appointed development team manager and assistant to the newly-appointed senior Showjumping High Performance Director, Rodrigo Pessoa. This pair, in the company of the High Performance chairman Gerry Mullins, arrived in Gothenburg for the European championships in late August on the back of some excellent results at La Baule, Rome and Falsterbo.

TARGET

Pessoa had targeted these Championships from the outset of his tenure and while it was disappointing that, following a fall, Bertram Allen and Hector van d’Abdijhoeve didn’t compete in the final round of the team jumping, Cian O’Connor (Good Luck), Shane Sweetnam (Chaqui Z) and Denis Lynch (All Star 5) secured gold for Ireland for just the second time in the 60-year history of the event.

O’Connor, who became the first Irish rider to win two medals at the same championships when claiming individual bronze, had the biggest smile of all in the team photograph which featured on the cover of the Irish Horse World on Saturday, September 2nd and on a free poster of the winners which was included with that week’s paper.

Britain didn’t send a team to Gothenburg, a decision which is still causing rancour within the sport, and, unfortunately, in early December, the wider community here learned of trouble in the Irish camp with Mullins said to have resigned in October while Pessoa was considering his position.

The problem hadn’t been publicly resolved going into Christmas but all will be hoping that everything gets back on track in the build-up to the World Equestrian Games in the USA next September.