I am very confident that our pony riders would have brought home European medals again this year. But Covid-19 has stopped all that,” is the opinion of Gary Marshall, Horse Sport Ireland’s (HSI) high performance manager for our international pony teams. The disappointment in his voice echoes that of our whole young rider cohort, many of whom are missing out on opportunities that will never come their way again.

“We produce the very best young riders in the world and a number of them that would really have had a shot at European gold will be over age when the championships happen again next year,” Gary notes.

Among that group is young Niamh McEvoy from the Northern region. According to her mother Maeve, who was a pony riding star herself back in the 1980’s: “It has been a great disappointment to Niamh.

“She was really ready for it but after just one outing at the Spring Tour it all stopped. Yet the ponies and horses have been her salvation during lockdown. She has kept on training. Now we are hoping she will find a horse for juniors next year.”

Disappointment

James Kernan, who is high performance manager for juniors and young riders notes the same degree of disappointment among his contenders.

“We were going to have three fabulous teams this year,” he says. “There was so much disappointment, I approached the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) to see if the championships could have been postponed instead of being cancelled. But it was not to be. I am still hoping that what is called the world final can go ahead in late September. For some of our riders this would be their last year and that would give them something to look forward to.”

As for his own facility at Crossmaglen, James notes that he has taken advantage of the enforced break to do a good deal of upgrading. He hopes for a return of shows by the end of this month.

As for Marion Hughes’s two young daughters Molly (18) and Marta (14), they are to get a bit of a respite since the family has 14 horses stabled in Portugal where competition is already back under way.

The hope is that with the easing of restrictions, particularly in terms of travel that training shows on the home front can soon get under way again. There is also hope that by September time some larger competitive events can be run.

But for now we can only commiserate with some of our young and Olympic level riders who are missing out not only on normal competition but the chance of a once in a lifetime world class medal as well.