EQUESTRIAN Macken row: If there were gold medals to be won for in-fighting, the Show Jumping Association of Ireland would surely be claiming squatters' rights to the top step of the podium by now.
Eddie Macken - the best known name in Irish equestrianism - was sacked last week as trainer to the senior show jumping team by the same quintet that had appointed him just four months previously. But, in a coup d'etat staged by members of the SJAI at their a.g.m. on Tuesday night, Macken was reinstated as trainer and also promoted to the role of chef d'equipe.
Despite a challenge from the association's national chairman Charles Hanley, who questioned the legality of the members' vote, Macken has been offered the dual role and the SJAI executive, following a vote of no confidence in the selectors, will be forced to dismiss the five-man international affairs committee when they meet on Monday next.
Chairman of selectors Peter Leonard is sanguine about his imminent departure. "Basically it's the executive's call and we'll take it on the chin," he said. "It's a democratic process of sorts, but there are a lot of implications for the future of the SJAI if it can be held to ransom by a mob of members."
Edward Doyle, who masterminded the demand for Macken's reinstatement and the resignation of the selectors, tabled the vote of no confidence at the a.g.m. Seconded by Harry Marshall, the motion was passed and immediately followed by a proposal from Macken's Longford compatriot Brian Gormley that the four-time Hickstead Derby winner be brought back as team trainer and appointed chef d'equipe.
That motion also received huge support, although it says a lot about the commitment of the rank and file members of the SJAI that less than 100 turned out from a membership of over 7,000.
The association's legal adviser Michael O'Sullivan was quick to respond to the national chairman's challenge, quoting the articles of association which state the a.g.m. is the only time during the year the members' views hold sway over the executive.
It will be a bitter pill to swallow, but most bitter of all for Tommy Wade, who led the Irish team to European gold in 2001 and oversaw Dermott Lennon's march to individual honours at the World Equestrian Games in Spain the following year. However, Wade has said he will fight the decision all the way and is claiming that Tuesday night's meeting was unconstitutional.
Wade, a member of the international affairs committee in charge of selection for all international fixtures, presides over the Irish team for the final time in Rotterdam this afternoon when they bid to put an end to a run of disastrous results that has left them last and well off the pace in the Samsung Super League.
Macken, who initially accepted the twin role of trainer and chef d'equipe in a telephone conversation with Gormley during Tuesday's a.g.m., has since decided he would rather concentrate on the role of trainer and bring in an alternative chef d'equipe. Nevertheless Macken remains cautiously optimistic about the future.
"I take over in Aachen and then we can get the ball rolling and get on the road to Athens and do what we set out at the beginning of the year to accomplish, which is to bring a medal home," he said.
"It's great that everybody's 100 per cent behind the team and I really appreciate the support that myself and the riders received from the floor of the a.g.m. I hope that the enthusiasm and commitment will stay behind us right through to the Games."
The SJAI reaches its half-century this year. If the finger can be removed from the self-destruct button, what better way to celebrate its golden jubilee than to produce Ireland's first Olympic success for equestrian sport?
