Hazelwood College Show Jumping
Reporter: Gary Hanley
Over the past few weeks in Hazelwood College we have been busily preparing for our first interschool’s show jumping competition of the year. We aimed to compete on the 1st of November in Clonshire Equestrian Centre Adare. We had minor problems a few days before the competition but we came through these and were able put out a good team for the event. With this we decided to get in some practice and headed down to Clonshire where we went for four practice sessions. I would like to thank Dan and Sue Foley who were very obliging in allowing us to use their facilities in Clonshire Equestrian Centre. I would also like to thank Dan who gave us a show jumping lesson coming up to the competition.
We decided to enter both a novice and an open team. On the novice team we had Sophie Brouder on “Fiesta”, Rebecca O’Connell on “Millie”, Loretta Hanley on “The Big Al D” and Ian Morrissey on “Busby”. This team battled really hard and showed great determination to jump in the outdoor arena on a wet wintery morning over a tough course. The team performed much better over the indoor course and were unlucky not to be placed.
On the open team we had Sophie Brouder on “Tidal Bay Dreams”, Loretta Hanley on “Kirsten”, Rebecca O`Connell on “Lucky Free Spirit” and Sinead O Keefe on “Blue Chiraz”. This team showed great character and grit as the outdoor arena was very heavy under foot. The team battled through and came out of it with three clear rounds. Soon after they were jumping their second round in the indoor arena, the team showed great riding ability in here and we finished off with an overall team score of only four faults. We decided to wait until the team event was over to see if our hard work had paid off. After several hours of waiting around we were informed that we had been placed fifth. Naturally the team was delighted with such a great result in our first competition together. Hopefully we can take this result and push forward and compete in more competitions over the coming months.
