Susan Oakes establishes new side saddle record for jumping triple bar at six feet, four-and-a-half inches from ground level. / Noel Mullins photo
Susan Oakes—Joint-Master of the Grallagh Harriers and the organizer of last year’s international ladies’ side saddle hunt with the Meath Foxhounds—set two side saddle high jump world records at the Irish National Sports Center on October 24, 2013.
Oakes jumped six feet, eight inches over a puissance wall, breaking her own record of five feet which she established just this summer at the RDS Dublin Horse Show. Then she established a world record of six feet, four-and-a-half inches for jumping a triple bar from ground level.
A world record of six feet, six inches for the triple bar set in Australia in 1915 still stands unbroken, but that record was established by jumping off a ramp. Foxhunting Life reported on Oakes’s attempt to break that record last year and also reported on the international ladies’ side saddle hunt that Oakes organized at the Meath last year. Fifty ladies from nine countries including the U.S. participated in that elegant affair.
Susan Oakes breaks her own side saddle record by jumping six feet, eight inches over the puissance wall. / Noel Mullins photo
As a result of the success of that event, Oakes has organized two meets for this year—the first with the Tara Harriers in County Meath on Saturday, November 1, 2013 (followed by the Tara Harriers Hunt Ball) and the second on the following day with her own pack, the Grallagh Harriers, over the famous Galway stone walls. Oakes arranges hirelings for visitors from abroad and schools them all to the sidesaddle in advance.
Oakes also rides her own horses in point-to-point races all over Ireland. She won the Melton Mowbray Side Saddle Point-to-Point this year in England.
Posted October 27, 2013
Author/photographer/foxhunter Noel Mullins is a retired computer marketing executive in Ireland. Visit his website for more of his work and his books.