Mounted Games Association: SA competing at the WTC

DANIEL Ferreira, who resides in Glenvista, left with team South Africa to compete in the World Team Championship.

He is one of five members of the Mounted Games Association of South Africa (MGASA) who will be competing from today, July 6, to July 12, at the Kentucky Horse Park in Kentucky, USA.

The five riders taking part are: Megan Marr and Daniel Ferreira (GAU) from Glenvista, Megan Frost, Tomas Forsythe (KZN) and Dani De Marcelin Vinay (WC). The team manager and coach, Chris Kritzinger, hails from KZN.

Team SA attended their first WTC in 2001 in Canada. Since then the sport has grown in leaps and bounds. Teams were sent to the WTC USA in 2003, Belgium in 2008 and England in 2009. SA then hosted the first ever Southern Hemisphere Championships (SHC) in 2010, to which New Zealand and Australia were invited. An SA team was sent to New Zealand in 2011 and to Australia in 2012.

Ferreira is one of the prominent members of the team and has competed in the three Gauteng competitions which were all held at Penbritte Equestrian Centre. He has made the Gauteng team after which he paved his way through to the national team.

South Africa will also be sending a team to Australia at the end of 2015 to compete in the Five Nations Cup. The Five Nations will take place in SA in 2016 and the World Team Championships will also be run here in 2017.