Raising the bar

A GRAPH plotting show jumper Nicola FitzGibbon’s year would show it reaching its zenith at the Dublin Horse Show, only to hit a deep trough at the European Championships in Madrid in September.

In Dublin the Kildare rider shrugged off her semi-professional status but in Madrid she showed herself to be a rookie. That performance was accompanied by the pain of failing to qualify for the London Olympics.

Unsurprisingly, FitzGibbon questioned herself and, unsurprisingly for those that know her attitude, she sought to turn it into a positive. This proved to be the realisation that, if she was going to make it, she needed to tap into the experience of others. Cue a training stint with Sweden’s European champion Rolf-Goran Bengtsson, who rides out of a yard north-west of Hamburg, Germany.