Ireland kicked off its campaign at the World Equestrian Games (WEG) in Caen, France, last Monday with 21 riders competing across five disciplines: dressage, endurance, para dressage, eventing and jumping.

As show jumping gets under way at the Alltech World Equestrian Games with a warm-up on Monday next, Olympic qualification for Rio is high on the agenda for Ireland’s team of five: Bertram Allen with Ballywalter Farm’s Molly Malone V; Cameron Hanley with Eleonore Paschoud and Yves Bouvier’s Antello Z; Darragh Kenny with Hyperion Stud’s Imothep; Denis Lynch with Thomas Straumann’s All Star 5; and Conor Swail with Ariel and Susan Grange’s Lansdowne.

Only the top five nations will book their places for Brazil 2016. So the Irish have a mighty mountain to climb. However, when one considers that we came third in last year’s Furusiyya, it is not impossible.

Following Monday’s warm-up, team manager Robert Splaine will be naming his squad of four to represent us over the following five days of the toughest competition that they will ever face. Riders from more than 50 countries are taking part and we are up against hot favourites in the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland, who are all sure to be in contention for those top five places. Our only other shot at qualification will come in next year’s Europeans but it would be a great joy to nail down our place at these games. We have never done it before.

Meanwhile, the endurance discipline starts today (Thursday 28 August) with Ireland represented by Tom McGuinness and Helen McFarland. The eventing championships also kick off on today and Ireland fields Clare Abbott, Aoife Clark, Sarah Ennis, Joseph Murphy, Camilla Speirs and Sam Watson. In dressage, we are represented by James Connor, Anna Merveldt, Judy Reynolds and Roland Tong, while para dressage sees Breda Bernie, James Dwyer, Helen Kearney and Kate Kerr-Horan taking part.

In addition to the 21 Irish riders who will compete, a total of 32 Irish Sport Horses will also take part at the event.