The first day of this new addition to the Amateur calendar saw the newly rebuilt Kill International Equestrian Centre and the place looking fabulous from the beautiful Olympic Arena complete with new showjumping gear to the comfort of the indoor warm-up arena.

Throughout the Summer Kill having been running their Leagues and these have been well supported as the outdoor arena has the best footing around - and now as they move Indoors, riders found that they were jumping on an even better surface!

The program is set for a great weekend with the very civilised start time of 10am allowing for that all important weekend sleep-in with the first class being the Jump Off class where placings were 1st to 10th and the sun was shining as we all arrived at Kill International in Kill, County Kildare.

The tables and chairs were set up ringside for a great lunch and evening meal with the catering also right at the ringside so you didn't have to miss one bit of the action even when getting that important cup of tea and something to eat.

The tracks were built by Jerry Byrne and as always they were excellent with the right degree of difficulty for competition - and he had his fun with the new "smiley and sad face" fences putting them in the first double of the day!

Thanks must go to the Flannelly's for all their help with organising a great viewing area by way of the Media Platform which gives a fabulous view of this impressive arena and also thanks to Fintan Flannelly for making sure we had up to date start list for each class - which definitely makes it easier for us with trying to make sure that we spell these names correctly - not an easy task for Australian's used to Sheila and Jim and horses called Fred!

The first class of the day was the Jump Off class which saw a great start list with 92 on it - to speed things up the jump off was run straight after the first round if clear - in my own opinion this doesn't quite build the excitement of a jump off but at the same time with such big entries it is probably best to get it all moving.

Thanks to Mr Nigel Humphreys, Agricultural Contractor for his sponsorship of this class - without people like Nigel - we wouldn't have shows like this so please make sure that Nigel is your first port of call for your Agricultural quotes.

Audrey Cullen certainly gave herself and her horse Elora Danna plenty of verbal help around the course and perhaps a little chastisement when they appeared a little lost on course but quickly found their way again and jumped really well! (photo below left)