Kürten furious at 'unpatriotic' innuendo

EQUESTRIAN: Jessica Kürten, the world's leading female show jumper, is furious. Her decision last week to pull out of the Irish team for the Dublin Horse Show and the World Equestrian Games in Aachen at the end of August has generated acres of newsprint and she's not pleased about the spin being put on it.

"All this stuff about me being unpatriotic is rubbish", the overall world number two told The Irish Times from the Spanish fixture in La Coruna last night. "They're playing a very dangerous game," she said of the print media that have gone to town on the story.

"They're trying to open up the North/South divide again. I was born British and I took an Irish passport because they wanted me for the team, but I'm Irish."

The 37-year-old was born in Cullybackey, Co Antrim, is now based in Germany and has always stressed how proud she is to ride for Ireland. But a falling out with team manager Robert Splaine after she was dropped from the team for the Swiss Nations Cup in Lucerne last month has resulted in her pulling out of the season's two major competitions, the Dublin Horse Show and the World Equestrian Games.

"Do I have to crawl on my hands and knees to get on the team?" she asked after being told by Splaine her top horse, Quibell, would have to prove herself in the Dublin arena before being guaranteed a place on the Aga Khan team. "I've changed my plans and now they're going to rub my face in the dirt."

Corkman Splaine was given a three-year contract as team manager in early March. A month later, the new Equestrian Federation of Ireland jumping committee was created with the addition of former international riders James Kernan and Tommy Brennan as advisors to Splaine and John Ledingham as chairman of the new committee.

Kürten told The Irish Times last week she would not ride on the Irish team again while Splaine was at the helm. But, despite the row, and contrary to some media reports, Kürten has never called for Splaine's resignation.

"At this stage it's nothing to do with me because I'm not good enough for the team," Kürten said last night.

"As far as I'm concerned they can do whatever they like. I'm not going to give them any more fuel for the fire."

The crux of the problem, apart from the fact Ireland needs its most successful show jumper on side, is that the World Equestrian Games is an Olympic qualifier.

Ireland have to finish in the top five in the team championship to earn a place in the start list for Beijing 2008.

But there is another side to the story. The Irish team is clinging on by the fingernails to its place in the Samsung Super League. Even four clear jumping rounds in Hickstead on Friday weren't good enough to get Ireland off the bottom rung of the Super League ladder. Only Dublin and the final in Barcelona in mid-September remain before the axe falls on the team in eighth, the place currently occupied by Ireland. Relegation, the spectre that hung over the team for so much of 2005, is hovering ever closer.

Throughout the 2006 season, Splaine had tried to woo Kürten, her German husband Eckhard, and the third member of their team, owner Georgina Forbes.

But the wooing has turned sour and Kürten says she has no intention of changing her mind. She won't be in Dublin and she won't be in Aachen.

Splaine declined to comment when contacted by The Irish Times last night, but the jumping committee is due to issue a statement about the controversy in the next couple of days.