Iris Kellett:IRIS KELLETT, who has died aged 85, was one of Ireland's leading sportswomen. A former international showjumping rider, she also was a noted breeder of horses and trainer of many of Ireland's top riders.
As a 22-year-old rider, she won the Princess Elizabeth Cup at White City, London, in 1949, riding Rusty. Twenty years later she ended her international career on a high note, when she and Morning Light won the Ladies’ Individual European Championship at the Dublin Horse Show.
She joined the international showjumping circuit as the dominance of the sport by the great military equitation schools was diminishing – Ireland’s Army Equitation School was the only one to survive the second World War at world competition level. In 1947, she won the British Ladies National Championship. Also that year, with Jim Bryson, Joan Uprichard and Noel Hayes, she competed as a member of Ireland’s first civilian team at an official Federation Equestre International-approved Nations Cup competition at Blackpool. In 1948, she and Rusty won the International Grand Prix at the Dublin Horse Show. She was one of only three Irishwomen to do so, the others being Diana Connolly-Carew (1966) and Jessica Kürten (2008).
In 1951 she won the Princess Elizabeth Cup for the second time.
Born in Dublin in 1926, she was the only child of Thomas Henry Kellett and his wife Julia Dora (née Maron). Her father, a veterinary surgeon, founded the Kellett Riding School at Mespil Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin, in 1923.
She was educated at St Margaret’s Hall and although she played hockey and tennis, always preferred horses. Her father taught her to ride and at 13, she instructed her first pupil, the 16-year-old son of a family friend.
Having competed in the children’s classes at shows, at 19 she had her first real success, at the RDS Spring Show, on a horse called General Battle.
By this time, she was closely involved in running her father’s riding school as both her parents were ill. She passed up a place to study science at Trinity College Dublin to keep the business open and to concentrate on showjumping.
Her partnership with Rusty began at the RDS Spring Show in 1947 and she quickly established herself as a first-rate horsewoman. “I often wonder myself why I was so much better than my contemporaries,” she said in 1991. “Maybe it was a bad period.”
Her career was almost ended in 1952 after she suffered a serious ankle injury when she was thrown from a horse. While she was in hospital tetanus took hold, and her life lay in the balance.
However, she recovered and after being hospitalised for six months returned home. Eighteen months later, and against the odds, she was fit enough to ride competitively, and she and Rusty got a rousing reception at the Spring Show in 1954.
She suffered further injuries: “I broke my leg, the same leg, after that. And I broke my shoulder, and I broke my ribs, and I broke my wrist twice. But they weren’t bad.” She returned to international competition in the 1960s.
For a time, the premises at Mespil Road became the unofficial headquarters of Irish showjumping. So taken was she by the promise of a young Meath rider that she paid for his board and keep in Dublin. His name was Eddie Macken, who was soon representing Ireland in the Aga Khan trophy competition on Morning Light, the horse which had taken her to her greatest triumph. Another pupil was Paul Darragh. And Charles Haughey was among those who took part in riding classes for businessmen.
She sold the Mespil Road premises in the early 1970s, moving to a purpose-built establishment in Kill, Co Kildare, which opened in 1974. Hundreds of upcoming riders were trained there, including the Kuwaiti national team, which went on to win the gold, silver and bronze medals in the Asian Games.
She later moved to a smaller establishment a few miles away, where she operated a riding school. She served as a director of Bord na gCapall, acted as an adviser in the development of equestrian science as a degree subject at the University of Limerick (UL) and was, in 1996, inducted into the Texaco Sports Hall of Fame. In 1999, she was conferred with an honorary doctorate by UL.
An honorary life member of the RDS, she was a former director of the Eblana Bookshop, Grafton Street, Dublin. Twice married, she is survived by her relatives.
Iris Patricia Kellett: born January 8th, 1926; died March 11th, 2011