Horsing around with jumping jargon

NATIONS Cup day at the Fáilte Ireland Dublin Horse Show is an occasion when decorum, protocol and social graces are much observed.

It was no different yesterday as senior officials donned formal attire for a day of pageantry, excitement and colour in the Ballsbridge grounds.

President Mary McAleese and members of the diplomatic corps watched as Germany won the competition, with the Netherlands second and rank outsiders Ireland a credible third.

But the polite language of the day had the potential to confuse people not accustomed to jumping jargon.

The Aga, for instance, was not a kitchen cooker but the name of the famous Nations Cup trophy put up for competition at Dublin by the Aga Khan.

Chef d’Equipe had nothing to with cooks, celebrity or otherwise, but the job title of the person in charge of a competing team.

The pocket was not part of a person’s clothing but the area where horses waited to enter the arena.

A round was merely the completion of a predetermined sequence of obstacles and was not in any way associated with buying drinks in a pub.

Elimination, a word politicians dread to hear at election counts, was a penalty for a horse having more than two refusals at an obstacle.

And talk of a spread was no reference to bedcovers but an obstacle that contains width as well as height.

The prize money on offer is €34,000, which everybody agreed is a mighty big pot of money in anybody’s language.

The international ground jury at the RDS had no weighty matters to try yesterday — it merely had to adjudicate on any issue in relation to the jumping competitions.

“Basically, it’s a kind of an equestrian appeal court,” said one who knows about these matters, as Germany celebrated a big win and the Irish were happy at having done so well against all the predictions.