Requirements: Arena & Equipment

For a competition to take place there needs to be a suitable arena set up to play in. In the Irish Pony Club most competitions take place in rural locations in Leinster, as majority of clubs such as Meath, Louth, Shillelagh, Laois and Kildare from Leinster. However there are a few clubs every year which have to travel long distances to compete such as Duhallow from Cork and Galway. To make it a bit fairer, some years qualifiers are played in Galway or Cork so that they don't always have to do the travelling.

There are four qualifiers before the RDS takes place in August. These are played in grass arenas, usually in Charleville, Monastereven and Galway. Most competitions are played on grass arenas. There are many reasons behind this. Obviously it cannot be run on hard concrete as this would be very dangerous if a rider fell. It would also damage the pony's feet, especially if they are not wearing shoes. Another alternative to grass could be sand. One of the reasons that sand is not used more often is because of it's size. Games arenas need to be certain widths and lengths and majority of sand arenas would not be suitable. There is a sand arena in Punchestown that is sometimes used for trials or MGA however the competitions cannot be held in the same place every time. It also costs more to rent a sand arena, compared to fields which are mostly owned by players' families anyway.
In the winter sand arenas would be more practical as grass can become muddy very quickly, unlike sand, and can also freeze. If the grass becomes too wet it can also be dangerous as the speed could lead to a pony falling and injuring themselves. Luckily in Ireland we have lots of space and rich grass to both train and compete on. As Ireland is a relatively small island too, the furthest people have to travel for competitions would be around 3 hours by car compared to places in America or across Europe where people could spend days travelling beforehand. This not only saves us money on fuel but means less green house gases are released into the atmosphere.

The final thing needed for a competition is equipment. Many games require the same equipment which can be very handy as they can be used again and again instead of having to buy different equipment for each race. It also saves the arena party who have to put out each piece of equipment between the races. 
Majority of the equipment is made from plastic or woods, with the exceptions of mugs and socks. Each piece is also painted or coloured too to make it easier to see for the rider during the game. Some ponies may shy away from equipment if they have never seen it before or are wary of it but after time will become used to it's appearance.

credit : www.abbeylawn.net

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.