Geography

Mounted Games is a sport played across the whole world. The season is divided up into different leagues for MGA:  the winter league and the spring league. There are also opportunities to represent Ireland at Europeans, World pairs and world individuals, although it can be very difficult to qualify to make a team.
The World Individual Championships and World Team Championships for MGA both began in 1986. Ireland first held the World Team Championships in 1998 and is due to hold them again in 2016. The Europeans were also held in Tattersalls in 2013.

Since 1986 England has been a keen contender in the games, hosting the World Individual Championships from 1986 - 2008.  During these years England has won the competition several times, 86 times out of 98 possible times. England's success is also evident in the World Pairs Championships, the European Team Championships and the World Team Championships.


Ireland have won the World Team Championships in 2010, The European Team Championships in 2013 (U17) and 2014 (Open), World Pairs Championships 2012 (open) and 2014 (U17), World Individual Championships 2013 (U17), and 2014 (U17). In the past 4years, Ireland have won the European Individual Championships 4 times.
From these results you could suggest that Mounted Games is becoming more popular in Ireland due to more recent successes. You could also suggest that the U17 age group seems to do the best, maybe showing future potential.

 Since the beginning of the International Mounted Games competitions it is very obvious that England have won the most titles. A clear reason for this could be that the sport was first started there by Prince Philip. The sport began in England and then spread further out across the world. England has also held the most international competitions too.
Apart from this ,there are many other reasons that could be behind the success of the county. England's climate tends to consist of warm summers and cold winters. Due to climate change, the amount of snow falling in England over the past few decades has decreased, which means that the horses and ponies can be ridden and trained through winter. The warmest month of the year is July, where Mounted Games season is in full swing. This means longer days, so longer training sessions than winter. The temperature in England for July is an average 19 degrees Celsius, which is good for training and competition sessions.
The English climate can consist of cold and warm weather which can be an advantage when competing in foreign counties as it is easier for horses and riders to adapt to change in weather, compared to countries such as Norway who experience extremely cold winters and may struggle in very hot conditions.

In the Irish Pony Club there is only one main season which begins around June and finishes at the Curragh race course in October. However, if they wish, players under 15 years of age may choose to present themselves for  international trials in January to travel abroad to Scotland, Wales and England in May. The winter and spring is spent training every weekend for the occasion. The highlight of the season is at the RDS horseshow where 6 teams from across Ireland compete on the Saturday and Sunday after completing four qualifiers to earn their place at the show. This show is definitely the highlight of the each year due to the intensity of the qualifiers leading up to the weekend competition and the large crowd that congregates every year. The atmosphere is electric and really is an unforgettable experience.