From the Field to the Arena: A Century of Women’s Show Jumping at the Dublin Horse Show

From the Field to the Arena: A Century of Women’s Show Jumping at the Dublin Horse Show
 

100 years of women’s show jumping at the Dublin Horse Show celebrated with From the Field to the Arena: A Century of Women’s Show Jumping at the Dublin Horse Show. The exhibition will display at this year’s Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ Stena Line Dublin Horse Show this commemorative year, drawing from the RDS Library & Archives and telling the fascinating story of women’s show jumping at the RDS for the past ten decades.
 

In 1919 the RDS introduced a Ladies’ Jumping Competition on the Thursday of the Show. The very first winner of the Competition was Florence Garth from Co. Meath, with her horse Motor Car. The following year all the Show’s jumping competitions were opened to women. The Ladies’ Jumping Competition went on until 1936, by which time the Thursday of the Show was forever established as Ladies’ Day.
 

The earliest Horse Show catalogue of 1868 includes an entry for Mrs Mooney of Crumlin, Co. Dublin in Class M (Agricultural Horses). She went on to win the Class, with a prize of £15, for her mare Jessy. Mrs Mooney is the first recorded example of a female equestrian exhibitor and prize winner at Dublin and, is the one of the first in a long line of remarkable women associated with the Horse Show.
 

The 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s saw the rise of show jumping legends Iris Kellett, Diana Conolly-Carew and Ada Matheson, who competed on Nations Cup teams and won many prizes at Dublin, including the Grand Prix and the Aga Khan trophy. From the 1970s to the 1990s women continued to excel at the Horse Show with riders such as Marion Hughes and Jessica Kuerten representing Ireland at the Olympics and winning major competitions both at home and abroad.
 

A century on from the very first ladies jumping competitions at Dublin, women continue to excel in international show jumping at the Horse Show. In 2017 the Aga Khan trophy was awarded for the first time to an all-female team when Beezie Madden, Lauren Hough, Laura Kraut and Lillie Keenan won the Longines FEI Nations Cup for the United States.
 

From the Field to the Arena: A Century of Women’s Show Jumping at the Dublin Horse Show is curated with material drawn from the Dublin Horse Show Archive, housed in the RDS Library & Archives and available online at:  https://digitalarchive.rds.ie
 

The exhibition opens in the RDS Library on 2 August and runs until 13 September. Admission to the exhibition is free to all ticket holders during the Dublin Horse Show (7 – 11 August, 2019)