SCHOOL REPORT NEWBRIDGE COLLEGE:Appropriately enough, Richard Fitzpatrickfinds a thriving equestrian club in a college and area with a proud equine history
FOUNDED OVER 150 years ago, Newbridge College is one of Ireland's most venerable secondary schools. Its skyline is dominated by a lovely clock tower. Curiously, the school is not much younger than the town which gives it its name. Newbridge grew up around a large cavalry barracks constructed in 1816, one imposed for security reasons following the 1798 rebellion and the unrest which accompanied the Napoleonic wars. It accommodated 1,800 horses.
Today, appropriately enough, Newbridge College is one the country's foremost horse-riding schools. Most of the schools which compete with Newbridge College in the Hoofprints' Interschools show-jumping league are also based in the Midlands and South East, such as Coláiste Bhríde Carnew, Kilkenny College and St Finian's in Mullingar.
The league has been running for 15 or 16 years. It is thriving. Up to 50 teams - totalling about 200 pupils - compete at each of 17 events over the winter.
Newbridge College is a relatively new entrant in the formal league. Its equestrian club was established nine years ago. It has 50 members (and growing), of which about 80 per cent are girls; the boy/girl ratio varies from school to school. The club is co-ordinated by parents such as Helen O'Neill and Carol Doyle on a voluntary basis.
"We have the dubious pleasure of driving the sleeping rider and pony home in the dusk," says Helen O'Neill of other tasks which include cheerleading and occasional work, she kids, as "unpaid grooms".
In reality, the hard grind of looking after horses rests with the students. Alyssa O'Neill, for example, is up at 6.45 every morning to feed and muck out her pony's stable, among other chores such as grooming, cooling her off after a ride and cleaning tack. Horses will, understandably, perform best if they're kept fit and healthy. Her team-mate, Aisling Doyle, aged 15, for instance, will ride out four times a week.
A pet isn't for Christmas, as they say. Horse-riding, above most others, demands devotion.
"It's not like, say, a team sport like hockey or rugby or any of those sports where you can just basically go through a training session; there's an animal involved," says Tom Blanche, who is only the college's second lay principal.
"There's a bit of looking after there as well. I think the biggest difficulty for students is when they're in exam years, when they don't have as much free time. Then, when they move on to college, they're conscious where they're going to be based because I know students - and Helen would know them as well - who want to be located preferably in either Maynooth or Dublin so they can be near to their horses. It would dictate where they would go to university, especially if it is their dominant sport."
"You have to love them to keep it up," says Alyssa O'Neill, adding that it is commonplace to compete in showers of hailstone and rain, times when they'd be in "mud up to our hips".
"There's a lot of effort involved," adds Doyle, who remarks later, wryly, that a lot of "good bonding" comes from the endless grooming of her bay horse, Rosshaven Party Time, who goes by the pet name, Kia.
They each know of friends who rode ponies in primary school, only "to tire" of the commitment involved.
"You give up a lot," says Doyle. "Your weekends are taken up with shows or riding out. You don't really have time to do other stuff."
"Like hanging out in the Whitewater, the local shopping centre," quips Helen O'Neill, "They don't get to do that because they're too busy."
"It's worth the sacrifice - when you do well," says Doyle.
The dedication extends to bringing their horses "on holiday". Last summer, while their classmates were sunning it up in "Spain and Lanzarote", the pair took the ferry to England along with four other team-mates - Una Delahunt, Hannah McDonnell, Leanne O'Sullivan and Louise Morrison - for a five-day excursion to the British National Schools and Pony Club Championships held in Hickstead, home of the Hickstead Derby.
Both Newbridge's teams finished in the top 20 from over 60 schools competing, but, more importantly, the camaraderie between the Irish schools on the show-jumping circuit blossomed there.
"When you go to the shows and you see all the other teams, you meet everyone that you haven't seen in a while," explains Doyle.
"You make loads more friends," says Alyssa O'Neill in endorsement.
"When we went to Hickstead, we cheered for all the Irish teams," says Doyle.
"We all supported each other," agrees Alyssa. "Normally at home, we'd be very competitive. We'd be friends, but when we get up on the horses, you'd want to beat them. You'd want them to do well, but you'd want us to do better!"
And who's the best school, you wonder?
"Newbridge, of course; do you have to ask?" says Doyle, as the pair tumble in laughter.
INSIDE TRACK: ALYSSA O'NEILL
Age:14.
Began horse-riding:At age 3.
Name of pony:Zina; the family bought her 14 years ago - "long before Xena: Warrior Princesscame on the scene" - when she was aged six for £1,500 (€1,850). Both her older sisters have ridden her. Its not widely known that Ruby Walsh fell off Alyssa's first pony, Einstein, on a hunt.
Equestrian heroes:Jessica Kürten and Nina Carberry: "She'd be my favourite National Hunt jockey because she's a girl racing against all the lads."
Highlight of school sports career:Won individual accumulative Irish schools league, 2008.
Highlight of equestrian career:Represented Ireland on 143cm Working Hunter Team at the 2008 British Show Pony Society meeting in Grantham, England, winning the 143cm gold cup competition there and the Rathbawn Derby.
Play any other sports?"Hockey!"
NEWBRIDGE COLLEGE FACTFILE
School:Newbridge College, Newbridge, Co Kildare.
Founded:1852.
Number of pupils:803 (girls, who were first admitted in 1984, make up half the student population).
Sports played:Athletics, basketball, canoeing, equestrian, golf, hockey, soccer, rugby, skiing.
Show-jumping titles:Inter-schools accumulative league 2008, Midlands league 2008.
Notable past pupils:Cyril Cusack, Feargal Quinn, Aubrey Brabazon, Dermot Weld, Christy Moore, William Doyle, Mick Quinn.
