PARALYMPICS:While watching two women train for the paralympics dressage team, GEMMA TIPTONis struck by the how the riders and their horses move with incredible grace
REDA BERNIE WAS riding before she could walk. She isn’t one of those born-in-the-saddle children of pony-mad parents though – in fact she’s the only one in her family who rides at all. The reason she was on a pony before she was on her own two legs is because she has cerebral palsy and although she took her first riding lesson with Riding for the Disabled Association of Ireland, at the age of five, it wasn’t until a year later that she began walking with the aid of a stick.
Riding for the Disabled allows adults and children with varying levels of disability to experience freedom of movement on the backs of willing horses and ponies. But Bernie has gone way beyond this, and when we meet, she is at Maryville Stables in Cork, at a training camp for the Irish Paralympic dressage team.
With two paralympic games under her belt already (Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004), Bernie is a single-minded athlete, who adds swimming, gym work, rowing and physiotherapy to her training regime.
Paralympic riders are ranked according to level of disability, with 1a being the most disabled, and 1V being the least. Riding at 1b, Bernie was third in the world in 2009.
“I only get nervous about doing my best,” she says. “If you were scared of falling off, you wouldn’t ride.” Pretty and slim, with a wavy blonde bob and green eyes, she has a look of focused determination as she takes me through her training schedule, an expression that softens when we walk around to the stables to meet her horse, Ukina Van Beekdal – stable name: Kina.
Kina is a large, nervy bay mare, but she relaxes when Bernie comes into the stable. “Mum and dad have been brilliant,” Bernie says, of Ena and Dave Bernie. “Dad is an all-Ireland medal winner, he played hurling for Wexford, so they understand sport. Though if it wasn’t for my disability I would never have started riding.”
She pauses as Kina gently nuzzles her green T-shirt. Bernie, who also has a full-time job with the Health Services Executive in Dublin, says that getting the balance right is important. “Money is tough, and you need to focus and prioritise. When I rode in Athens, the music I chose was Don’t Stop Me Now.”
Kina pricks up her ears, as outside, Eilish Byrne is about to get on her horse, a huge chestnut gelding called Yuri. French dressage judge Anne Prain has flown over to spend the day with team trainer Donie McNamara, giving each horse and rider an intensive session.
Watching Eilish ride, I’m amazed by how she gets her horse to move, going through the paces and movements of dressage (which has been likened to ballet on horseback) with fluid grace. On the ground, you are keenly aware of the effort Byrne has to put into getting around. In the saddle, she and Yuri are pure poetry.
Byrne is another petite blonde, with a warm and engaging smile, and she hasn’t let her cystic fibrosis prevent her from going on beach rides, swimming with horses in Australia, show jumping, and representing her country at the Hong Kong Paralympics. “I started riding when I was 12. I was mad keen to get up – there was a riding school opposite my school, and they spoke to my parents and said, ‘Look, this girl is going to do it anyway . . .’”
She describes her addiction to dressage as “a sort of compulsive obsessive disorder. You always want to do better. I get a real sense of achievement when I can get my horse to work with me – plus the fact that I feel I’ve got four good legs under me.”
To compete at paralympic level, riders can apply to use what are termed compensatory aides. Byrne rides with two sticks, because, as she says, “I’m weak from the hips down, I have to do it all with my backside, and use my weight to work with Yuri.” Like many of the riders, she also has clips to hold her feet in the stirrups, and elastic straps attaching the stirrups to the girth. “If I didn’t, my legs would just go everywhere.”
Riding six days a week, Byrne admits that it has been far from easy. “Yuri is my pride and joy, but he was a raving lunatic for about three months when I first got him. I used to sit outside the stable door and say to him, ‘it’s all right, Yuri, it’s going to be fine’.”
Now the two have bonded to the extent that the tall horse will splay his legs, getting as close to the ground as he can, so that Byrne can give him the back rubs he adores.
The riders and trainers break for lunch, and outside in the sunshine, Prain discusses the morning session? “It has been very interesting, there are good horse-and-rider combinations, and they are getting the points that will take them to the top. They are good riders, it is good work.”
When judging, does she take grade and disability into account? “I forget the disability. I judge the rider solely on what the horse does. Just like the able-bodied competitions, I judge only the horse and forget everything else. If they ride with extra whips, with only one hand, or with no hands at all, that’s not what I judge.”
More of the team are warming their horses up, and once in the saddle, they move seemingly seamlessly, beyond mere mobility to epitomise grace on horseback. It’s little surprise that the Irish team is ranked fifth in the world, and is aiming, for the first time, to qualify to bring an entire team to London 2012.
Team training camps also take place at Kildalton College, Kilkenny, and the next one will be on August 19th-20th at Spruce Lodge, Wicklow, as riders prepare for the next international competition at Moorsele in Belgium
Supporting the team Drivers needed
The Para Equestrian dressage team is supported by a network of volunteers, but is constantly short of funds. The money issue has been eased somewhat, since June, when Denis O'Brien stepped in with support of €35,000 a year for two years. O'Brien, who met director Dara Kearney at a party, came up with the support because, as he says, "The level of enthusiasm, commitment and energy from the team is so impressive [and] they enjoy such total support from their mentors, friends and families."
Kearney says that would-be patrons who fancy themselves as horse owners can buy a horse for one of the team, and then watch the pair go to the London Paralympics. They also need transport, as many of the riders can't drive and their horses alone – so anyone with an idle horse lorry in their yard, now is the time to get involved and do something for the team.
See paraequestrianireland.com or contact Dara Kearney on 087-2211691
