Susie Osborne of Dublin University Equestrian Club (DUEC) was chosen to represent Ireland at the weekend, in the Student Riding Nations Cup. Held in Switzerland, the event was Osborne’s first competitive appearance for Ireland, after being called up to the Irish Student Riders Squad in early 2017.
Osborne, a second-year medicine student, is the second member of DUEC to represent her country this year, after Robbie Kearns was selected for the Student Riding Nations Cup in Romania in June. At that event, Team Ireland finished in third place overall.
Speaking to The University Times over email, Club Captain Sean Cassidy described the scale of the athletes’ achievement in being selected to compete, along with the benefits of DUEC having two members representing Ireland internationally: “To have 2 DUEC members on the [Irish] squad is something we’re incredibly proud of as a club, especially given that they were both freshers when they were selected…Robbie and Susie represent a very exciting new wave of fresh talent that has come into the club in the last year.”
In Switzerland, Osborne competed alongside Tommy Harte of University College Cork (UCC) and Dublin City University student Jack O’Sullivan. All three riders competed in both dressage (a very technical discipline in which rider and horse execute a number of established movements) and show jumping. After a strong start, Osborne progressed to the second round of show jumping, where she had an unfortunate pole down. Ireland placed fourth in the showjumping and sixth overall.
It has been a successful calendar year for DUEC. In March, they finished as the best placed college overall at the Equestrian Intervarsity Championships in Queen’s University Belfast, beating UCC and University College Dublin to first place.
