McCormack takes top 20 finish at Young Rider event
A Second Year student at NUI Galway recently returned from a very successful trip to the TREC Young Rider World Championships in Spain.
Having been riding since she was 4-years-old, Kirsten McCormack – whose family originally hails from Lisduane, Eyrecourt – was a member of the East Galway Hunt Pony Club based in Ballinasloe for many years and this was her second World Championships, having competed in Italy in 2014.
TREC is a three phase horse sport with the first day being the equivalent of mounted orienteering (POR) where the rider firstly has to accurately copy a route from a master map under a strict time limit where there may also be blank sections necessitating the use of bearings and then successfully get from A to B finding as many random check points and bonus tickets along the way as possible.
There then follows a control of paces (MA) where the horse has to do as slow a collected canter as possible along a 150m corridor 1m wide before completing the return journey in a fast walk. The slower the canter and faster the walk, the more points that are scored but a break to trot sees no score for the section.
Lastly there is a cross country obstacle section (PTV) which, as well as having jumps similar to those seen at eventing or hunter trials, there are one handed figure of eights, slalom, ‘s’ bends, and the equivalent of equine limbo to name but a few with some obstacles having to be negotiated un-mounted.
Whereas in 2014 a full Ireland squad of eight made the trip to Italy, this year circumstances saw Kirsten and her horse, Batman, as the lone Team Ireland representative. Her parents and sister plus a contingent of TREC Ireland members, also made the trip to support Kirsten.
The first day of action on the Friday saw horses and riders tested to the full as they negotiated 35km through the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range.
The following day was the control of paces stage and whereas normally the 150m corridor is straight, this year they decided to use a horse shoe shape which threw some combinations off. Kirsten and Batman returned a millimetre perfect collected canter to earn the maximum 30 points and a tactical decision was made to aim for half points on the second leg rather than risk a break in pace with a zero return, which proved to be a wise move and saw a total of 43 of 60 points bagged.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.