Steven Degeld­here is re­turn­ing to de­fend his FEI World Jump­ing Chal­lenge ti­tle. Last year he rode "A Great Team," but this year he will ride "Wait­ing at the Front" owned by Alexan­dra Bovell. The event is be­ing spon­sored by The Bea­con In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny lim­it­ed. Here in T&T, our world of eques­tri­an sport is dom­i­nat­ed by women, some­times seem­ing­ly an all-ladies sport, but Degeld­here and one oth­er gen­tle­man, Garyck Jag­gan will come out to show just what the men have got. The T&T Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion's flag­ship event will be held from April 28-29 at the Hid­den Val­ley Sta­bles in San­ta Cruz. The FEI World Jump­ing Chal­lenge is a glob­al com­pe­ti­tion in which rid­ers are af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty of com­pet­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly while rid­ing in their home coun­try. Degeld­here won last year's chal­lenge ahead of Chelsea Thomas and Mariel Lanser. His com­pe­ti­tion this year, clear­ing heights of up to 1.15m will be Sand­hya Moll on "Ma­jes­tic 7", last year's "High League Rid­er of the Year", and Char­lotte Mor­ri­son rid­ing her grey geld­ing "Al­fie Me Boy".

Last month, Mor­ri­son trumped Moll to win the Su­per League Leg 2 com­pe­ti­tion, and to add a bit of fu­el to the fire, Melis­sa In­gle­field will be rid­ing her re­cent­ly ac­quired warm­blood "Cas­sius CKS" in this di­vi­sion as well. These horse and rid­er com­bi­na­tions promise some keen com­pe­ti­tion in this di­vi­sion. Thomas rid­ing "No­bil LX" this year and Lanser on "Rhap­sody" re­turn in the Cat­e­go­ry C di­vi­sion, in which the max­i­mum height to be jumped will be 1.00m. Jag­gan on "Au­dac­i­ty to Hope" finds him­self the on­ly male in this cat­e­go­ry of nine en­trants. He will chal­lenge last year's sec­ond and third place rid­ers, along with oth­er long-stand­ing horse/rid­er com­bi­na­tions like Lau­ra Mor­ri­son on the res­cued "Geor­gio Ar­mani", Fran­ka Costel­loe on her Bar­ba­dos-bred "Viking Thun­der" and Jade Gomez rid­ing her Ara­bi­an mount "Dream Weaver".

The new­ly matched pairs of Kristie Ford on "Mo­roc­co" and Heather Ra­hael with "Zeus", will add their tal­ent to the mix. Adelle Stollmey­er, who re­cent­ly rep­re­sent­ed T&T in the Caribbean Eques­tri­an's As­so­ci­a­tion com­pe­ti­tion in Bar­ba­dos, will al­so make a show on "Ami­go Mio". The T&T Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion promis­es a week­end full of ac­tiv­i­ties at this in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised event. Along with top-class show-jump­ing, fam­i­lies can en­joy dog-agili­ty dis­plays, pony-rides, face-paint­ing, door prizes, bar­beque lunch on Sun­day and much more. Oth­er spon­sors in­clude Life­time Roof­ing, Thomas & Sons, Sign­wave, Sama­roo's, Spec­trum and San An­to­nio Farms.