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While the Inter-Africa Cup show-jumping competition has been running for some years, vaulting was contested for the first time in 2006. Both disciplines were hosted by the Swazi-Lizkhar Warmblood Stud near Izulwini. Swaziland and South Africa competed in the vaulting, which was narrowly won by South Africa.
The vaulting was run at E-grade, and competitors and spectators alike enjoyed a relaxed competition with a friendly atmosphere — in fact, the two teams had the same coach (Agata Pekala from Riba) and shared the same horse (Riba’s Boet)!
2006
SA vaulting team crossing the Swazi border
A few more minutes in the truck
Over the bridge...
And we're there!
short worm up...
Wow! Barbie's splits are better than mine...!
...and let's vault!
Swazi dancers
Winner of the first African Cup- South African team
Raquel McHardy, Victoria Laing, Joelle Lismont, Julia Pitchford, coach: Agata Pekala
2007
The second Inter-Africa Vaulting Challenge took place in the Lipizzaner Hall in Kyalami on the 9th and 9th of April. This event, started last year as a development
project by Barbie Gertenbach from Kyalami and Kate Taman from Swaziland, has
grown in just a year from three to eight teams, and from two to four countries.
One of the reasons for this growth is sponsorship: this year the event was sponsored
by organisations as diverse as the FEI (the international controlling body for
equestrian sports) and Twinings Tea, Multotec, Equipagé, H Q Magazine, H I Merwitz, Midfeeds, Divine Sales, Oryx Logistics, Arend Eloff, First Choice Financial Services, Eco Kids as well as many generous individuals.
Inter-Africa Cup
Opening Ceremony
South Africa (River Park), South Africa (Soweto riding club), Malawi (Pegasus club), Swaziland, Mauritius, South Africa (Riba Stables)
Another reason for the growth of vaulting in Southern Africa is that young international vaulters have been very generous with their expertise and have been coming to Africa to coach and run clinics. Agata Pekala (Poland), Bettina Daeppen (Switzerland) and Lukas Klouda (Czech Republic) have run vaulting clinics in Malawi, Soweto and Swaziland as well as South Africa, and these prompted the interest and enthusiasm that made this year’s Inter-Africa Cup possible. Without assistance from established vaulters, it is all too easy for vaulting to begin but then to stagnate at a low level.
Teams
South Africa
Soweto Riding Club 1 - Karabo, Musa, Kenthsani
Horse - Spice Girl
Lunger - Bettina Daeppen
South Africa
Sowto Riding Club 2 - Lesego, Siyabonga, Kethani, Bongani,
Horse - Fantasy
Lunger - Bettina Daeppen
South Africa
River Park Stables - Sebastian, Tanya, Abby
Horse - Palue
Lunger - Nicole de Villiers
Mauritius
vaulters - Victoria, Claire, Celine and Florian
Horse - Fantasy
Lunger - Agata Pekala
South Africa
Riba Stables - Kelsey Jo, Jessica, Kirsty and Zoe
Horse - Boet
Lunger - Agata Pekala
Vaulting
The aim, endorsed by the FEI, is eventually to establish and develop vaulting across most or all southern African countries. Vaulting is the best equestrian discipline for development as a number of vaulters can share one horse. South Africa has already been able to send one disadvantaged vaulter to compete at WEG: we hope that we shall in time be able to extend this privilege to more African competitors.
The visiting teams all met a week before the Inter-Africa Cup for a week-long clinic that culminated in the competition. The event was contested by two teams each from Soweto and Swaziland and one each from Riba (Kyalami), River Park (Bryanston), Malawi and Mauritius. The final results were: Riba, Mauritius, Swaziland II, River Park, Malawi, Swaziland I, Soweto II and Soweto I.
Results
1. South Africa (Riba Stables)
2. Mauritius
3. Swaziland (Swazi Lizkhar 2)
4. South Africa (River Park)
5. Malawi (Pegasus Club)
6. Swaziland (Swazi Lizkhar 1)
7. South Africa (Soweto RC 1)
8. South Africa (Soweto RC 2)
All the competitors of Inter Africa Cup
Winner of second Inter-Africa Cup - South African team from Riba Stables
Kirsty Rault, Zoe Mosiah, Kelsey Jo Baumann, Jessica Hunter
Chef D'Equipe - Bettina Daeppen
Lunger - Agata Pekala
2008
The third Inter-Africa Vaulting Cup took place from the 22nd to the 24th of March in the Lipizzaner Hall at Kyalami Equestrian Park. For three days, the Lipizzaner Hall was transformed into an international vaulting venue, with flags, bunting, plants, and a beautiful competition arena in front of the grandstands and a screened-off practice arena at the back of the hall.
Seven South African teams from four vaulting clubs and eleven teams from Mauritius (2), Zambia (3), Malawi (3) and Swaziland (3) competed in the E-grade competition. This year D-grade was offered for the first time in the Inter-Africa Cup, and this was contested by four South African teams from three clubs and a team from Swaziland. Eight of the teams were development teams — teams made up primarily of vaulters from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are heavily dependent on sponsorship and aid and for whom vaulting is an unprecedented opportunity.
Karen McGowan, Malawi’s National Vaulting Representative, brought two teams of young vaulters mostly recruited from farms in rural Malawi. Many of these children had never been in a car before, let alone a plane; for some this was also a first experience of hot baths and proper beds. Karen said, ‘They had the time of their lives … we brought the vaulters as an experiment! Of course, most of our vaulters are underprivileged: they have no exposure to television, they’ve never seen sports like dancing or gymnastics. They loved it – we’re all over the moon.’ Last year, Karen imported a horse suitable for vaulting from South Africa, and has been coaching her teams without a resident international coach — she has hosted clinics with Agata Pekala and a visiting German coach — and she is to be congratulated on her teams’ achievements. Most of her vaulters speak only Chichewa, so she also has to serve as translator during clinics, and during the training hosted at Riba Stables immediately before the Inter-Africa Cup. In the E-grade event, Karen’s teams came 4th and 9th and the Michiru Club team, also from Malawi, came 7th.
Team Malawi
Mauritius also has no resident international coach; Barbie and Jasyn Gertenbach ran intensive clinics there earlier this year, and Jasyn coached their teams in the run-up to Inter-Africa Cup. They fielded two very strong teams which included some very supple and talented vaulters. Congratulations to Celine Bourgault, Claire de Ravel, Victoria Seesha, and Nicolas Desvaux, the members of Mauritius 1, the winning E-grade team. Congratulations also go to Yoanna Seesha from Mauritius 2 (which came 6th in the E-grade): she was the only vaulter anyone had ever seen perform a head-stand on a horse!
The Willows girls stretching...
See the coach working hard in the background ??
Team Zambia
Yoanna - amazed everyone with her headstand!
Zambian team washing Silver Moon
Swaziland
Barbie raking the arena- with help !
Bunty and Bongani
Karabo and Nqobile
Zambia - helping to 'raise the curtain !!"
Barbie plaiting !!
Like Malawi, Zambia entered Inter-Africa Cup for the first time this year, and achieved excellent results in the E-grade competition: 2nd, 8th and 11th places. Silke Jens from Germany has been coaching there for two months, and Agata Pekala from Poland has also run some clinics. Silke says that some of her vaulters are really talented and very enthusiastic; they are looking for a canter horse and are determined to go far.
Swaziland, like South Africa, has been involved with the Inter-Africa Vaulting Cup from the start, when Kate Taman of the Swazi-Lizkhar Stud was one of the enthusiasts who got the event going. Ilka Kempes, from one of the top German vaulting teams, has been coaching in Swaziland since the beginning of the year. The Swazi teams, sponsored by MTN, were placed 5th, 17th and 18th in the E-grade competition and 4th in the D-grade event. MTN Swaziland (D) was the highest-placed development team.
South Africa fielded teams from four clubs: River Park, Riba, Willows and Enos Mofokate’s Soweto Riding Club. Enos says that, after over 20 years of trying to make it possible for disadvantaged riders to compete internationally in show-jumping, he has realised that vaulting is the discipline with the most potential for development. He says, ‘Involvement in a sport, especially one that includes a chance of representing one’s country, can give these kids an interest that enables them to break free from the disadvantages of their backgrounds.’ In the E-grade event, SA River Park came 3rd, SA Soweto 10th, and South African teams also took 12th to 16th places. The D-grade event was won by SA Riba 2: congratulations to Nicole Masson, Kelsey-Jo Baumann, and Julia Pitchford. SA River Park came 2nd, SA Riba 2 came 3rd and SA Soweto was 5th.
Inter-Africa Vaulting Cup 2008 was a huge success and the visiting teams all said how much they had enjoyed the experience. The atmosphere and spirit were amazing: everybody was involved and teams shared horses and coaches, fun and games, meals and chores. Mikkel Vandrup from Denmark, who is coaching at Riba, says that it was an amazing experience to see all the teams helping each other and that he will be glad to be able to boast that he was part of Inter-Africa Cup 2008. Although Mikkel helped with most of the teams, the Soweto teams were his special charge, and their performances did him proud. There were also some (happy) tears shed — amongst the spectators during the opening ceremony, and the day after the show saw tears and many gifts of carrots as young vaulters had to say goodbye to borrowed horses that they had worked with prior to and during the show.
A show succeeds only because of the efforts of many people. Thanks are due to all the officials who served through the three days of the show, and especially to the judges — Silke Ceruti and Shelley Paveley. Heartfelt thanks go to Janet Pitchford, Warren Hunter, Ina de Vry, Jakes Gertenbach, Cheryl Theron and Ingrid Masson, all of whom provided help in ways too numerous to mention. Thanks also go to a number of our young international vaulters, who gave a lot back to their sport and worked very hard to make the show a success. Jasyn and Chelsey Gertenbach, Bongani Mabandla and Kenhardt de Vry helped with everything from coaching and lungeing to operating the music for the show to heavy lifting, tidying up, picking up rubbish left by spectators, and all the little things that have to happen in the background.
Warren Hunter
Mikkel Vandrup
Ina de Vry - tired mom !!
Generous sponsorship enabled Barbie Gertenbach and her team to decorate the arena attractively, and to award trophies and ensure that every vaulter received a rosette, snacks and Easter eggs, and mementoes such as T-shirts. Thank-you to Twinings Tea, Silke Ceruti, Equipage, Haulcon, Multotec Pty Ltd, First Choice Financial Services, Oryx Logistics, Vrijehof Stud, Divine Sales, Herbal Life and Blue Hills Nursery. A special acknowledgement must be made of the Fédération Equestre Internationale, which provided funding to help development teams with their costs.
KJ Baumann - SA
Tito Maseko - Swaziland
Julia Pitchford - RSA
Winners D Grade team IAC 2008
Riba Team: Nicole, KJ, Julia
Coach: Mikkel Vandrup (Denmark)
Ingrid Masson of "Haulcon" One of the major sponsors of IAC 2008
Winners of the IAC 2008
Mauritius - Sabrina Bathfield (chef)
Nicolas, Celine, Claire, Victoria.
LEFT: Team from Willows in Pretoria with coach Kenhardt de Vry
MIDDLE: MTN team from Swaziland with SANEF president Tony Lewis
RIGHT: D Grade team from Swaziland -
winners of the 'Development Cup'
L - R Musa Maluleke, Ofentse Mokgatle, Lesego Ngidi, Khensani Maluleke
Mikkel Vandrup (Denmark) coach of the Soweto D team
Inter-Africa 2008 !!
86 Competitors
5 Nations !
2009
SWAZILAND
Inter-Africa Vaulting Cup 2009 (Swazi-Lizkhar Stud, Swaziland)
The fourth Inter-Africa Vaulting Cup took place in Swaziland, returning to the Emerald Kingdom after two years in South Africa.
75 vaulters (from 21 teams and a number of individual entries) from five countries — Malawi (four vaulters), Mauritius (eleven vaulters), South Africa (42 vaulters), Swaziland (thirteen vaulters) and Zambia (five vaulters) — entered this year. Nine horses were used: the two from Swaziland and five from Riba in South Africa were also made available to the visitors from Zambia, Malawi and Mauritius.
The show ran from Friday 21 to Saturday 22 August, hosted at Kate Taman’s beautiful and unique Swazil-Lizkhar Stud. The venue, accommodation, scenery and organisation were all superb. Swazi-Lizkhar is surrounded by emerald bush with a backdrop of amethyst mountains. Warthog, and buck stroll through the paddocks (to the consternation of the visiting horses) and hippo and crocodile infest the river. Australian Renée Collisson, who has been coaching in Swaziland for some months, ran the entire event with her small team of assistants: and her organisation was outstanding.
The visitors were accommodated at the nearby Mlilwane Wildlife Reserve in traditional beehive huts (with slightly less traditional en suite bathrooms).
The judging was done by Barbie Gertenbach, Hilde Ocenasek, Helen Anderson and Kim de Villiers, all from South Africa, and the scoring was efficiently done by Yolanda Odendaal from Swaziland. Mary Binks (Chairman of Group IX) from Kenya attended the event and encouraged everyone from organisers to coaches to vaulters by her enthusiasm.
Jacqueline Braissant of the FEI and the FEI itself must also be mentioned with gratitude: without their vision and continued support the Inter-Africa Vaulting Cup would never have begun, and never have grown so fast.
Most of the vaulters from Malawi, Swaziland and Soweto (in South Africa) are development vaulters, who would be unlikely to have got so far in so little time in any other equestrian discipline.
Three grades were offered, E-grade to C-grade, with classes for individuals and for teams. The D-grade team event was won by Riba (South Africa) and the E-grade team event was won by Mauritius. The C-grade individual event was won overall by 13-year-old Joelle Lismont of South Africa, who had the highest score across all the age categories. The D-grade individual winner was nine-year-old Hannah Newman (SA), and the E-grade individual winner was twelve-year-old Tawina Nixon (Malawi).
The atmosphere was welcoming and pleasant, which is part of the tradition of the Inter-Africa Cup. The fact that everyone was accommodated in the same place added greatly to the cameraderie. Many of the vaulters have met before and are good friends, and many of the visiting vaulters have favourites among the South African and Swazi horses, and all the South African and Malawian vaulters joined happily together in preparing all the Riba horses for the show
