By Pamela Fowler From CIEF

The Cayman Islands Equestrian Federation (“CIEF”) hosted the inaugural CEA Regional Jumping Challenge (“RJC”) this past weekend.

The RJC is a competition recently created by the Caribbean Equestrian Association to give developing show jumpers of all ages the chance to measure their skills against other riders in the Caribbean region. Riders compete in their home countries on their own horses and ride a preset course twice at either 0.85m or 1.0m.

Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica will all host the competition before the end of the year but Cayman was the first of the four to launch the competition.

Six riders from Cayman entered the challenge, held at Cayman Riding School in Savannah: Jenna Boucher, Chloe Fowler, Hannah Fowler, Lea Rado, Polly Serpell and Amara Thompson.

Jenna Boucher rode two different horses, one at each height and took top honours in both classes. In the 1 metre class, Boucher rode Edson Arantes MB and finished in first place, followed by Polly Serpell on Sunday’s Edition in second place and Hannah Fowler on Colette in third.
In the 0.85 metre class, Boucher placed first on Katrina, with Chloe Fowler in second on Shirley, Lea Rado on Never Ending Story in third and Amara Thompson on Teddy in fourth.

For the Cayman Team, the scores of Jenna Boucher and Polly Serpell in the 1 metre class and the scores of Chloe Fowler and Lea Rado in the 0.85 metre class were added together and put forward as team scores to be compared against the team scores of the other participating Caribbean countries, once their competitions have been held.

The CIEF also ran open jumping classes at 0.6 metres and 0.7 metres, after the RJC was complete. This gave the beginner show jumpers the opportunity to demonstrate their skills after the long summer break. Eva Muspratt and Oscar were first in the 0.7 metre class with Kayla Godwin and Harry in second and Grace Bostock on Lucyanna in third. In the 0.6 metre class Meegan Slattery was first on Jack followed by Kayla Godwin on Harry in second and Shayla Ebanks on Beanie in third.

On 27th September, 2015, starting at 8am, CIEF will host Event 2 of the FEI World Jumping Challenge at Cayman Riding School on Hirst Road in Savannah. Members of the public are invited to attend and admission is free.

IMAGES (supplied)

Photo credits due to Eve van den Bol, with thanks.