JEAN Kenny is not only a show jumping competitor but has already become involved in administration as she has helped organise the inter-schools equestrian teams at Meán Scoil Mhuire in Longford Town.

Over the past few weeks, the 17-year-old, who will be sitting her Leaving Certificate exams next June, had the opportunity to work at some of the qualifiers for next month’s Dublin Horse Show and here she tells us a bit about herself and her summer to date.

My name is Jean Kenny. I’m a longtime member of the Longford Pony Club – now competing at Intermediate level – and I have recently joined Mosstown Riding Club in Kenagh. I compete at Advanced Intermediate level with Mosstown and captained our team at the RDS team show jumping qualifier at Emerald Equestrian in April. I also compete with Show Jumping Ireland.

My first pony was Bridgehouse Pebbles who taught me valuable lessons when I was starting off; he is still enjoying life with friends of ours doing 60cms aged 28. My next pony was Blessington Pride who sadly passed away in 2020 aged 18. When I was 10, he took me to my first Pony Club show jumping championships and I have competed at the finals each year since then.

Combined training

My current horse is Sleehaun Magic, a 10-year-old Connemara-cross by Manninard Abel who I’ve had since he was four. Although I have done some eventing with ‘Magic’, my preference is combined training and team show jumping.

I was lucky enough to represent the Longford Branch, and Area 6, in the Pony Club Intermediate combined training competition at the Dublin Horse Show last August. Next week, I will be on the Branch’s Intermediate pure dressage, combined training and show jumping teams at the Irish Pony Club Festival in Barnadown.

This year Angela McGahern, the organiser of the Young Eventhorse Series, asked me to help her out at some of the RDS qualifiers. My father Eugene was a very good friend of the late Harold McGahern who was one of the founders of the young event horse series and Dad has erected the dressage arenas at the McGahern family’s Rincoola since the beginning. Every year, Margaret McGahern, her daughter Angela and the latter’s husband, Damien, kindly offer their venue to the Longford Branch for their Pony Club camp.

I worked at seven of the eight qualifiers across the country for the young event horses on Tuesdays and at the RDS Connemara and Irish Draught qualifiers which took place the following Saturdays. I missed the first Saturday qualifier at Forth Mountain as Harry Styles took priority over Connemaras and Draughts that day!

As they start early, we had to be on site for each qualifier at 7am. I didn’t mind these early starts and the fine weather we had at the time really helped. Angela was a huge support to me as she was always on hand to answer any queries I had. I gave competitors their numbers, organised passports and helped Angela with inputting scores on Equipe. The days were action-packed but we managed to have a few laughs along the way.

I found it so interesting to follow the breeding of the different horses and ponies who qualified for Dublin and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they all perform at the RDS where I am going to be helping out for the week, inputting scores online. All this experience should stand me in good stead in the future.

Extremely competitive

I have done all the Pony Club exams up to, and including, the B Test and lunging test and hope to sit the H Test this September. After I complete my Leaving Certificate in 2024, I’d like to study Veterinary Medicine, Agricultural Science or Genetics. The points are very high for Veterinary and, because there’s only the one college here in Ireland, UCD, offering Veterinary Science at the moment, it’s extremely competitive. There have been on-going discussions to set up a second college but this may not come about until 2025.