IT was bitterly cold but thankfully dry at Tyrella last Saturday when, a week later than scheduled, Eventing Ireland action got under way in the Northern Region.

Most of the country’s leading riders had made entries for the open intermediate class and it was particularly good to see such representatives from the Munster region travel up to the Corbett family’s seaside estate. Their journey had been broken by two days’ high-performance training with Ian Woodhead in Co Kildare.

The standard of the riders was matched by some high-profile dressage judges while regional show jumping course designer, Aaron McCusker, produced up to height, technical courses which produced few clear rounds in the graded classes.

In contrast, most of the fences used on last Saturday’s cross-country track caused problems.

Adam Stevenson had designed the box corner to skinny hanging log at 13 on the two-star course as an ab fence but, following approaches by a couple of riders, the second element was renumbered as 14 allowing riders to circle around to the skinny. Of those who chose to take on the course designer’s original route, and that was roughly half the field, only one combination glanced off the skinny.

Even at Tyrella, horses were putting a good print into the ground but those two fences were erected on one of the drier spots on the estate.

The ground in front of some other skinnies cut up badly but Pat Turley and his team began remedial work on the track as soon as the event ended and, by mid-day on Sunday, had it all finished. The East Down Branch of The Pony Club called off their event scheduled for Bank Holiday Monday but this was in response to the weather forecast, not the ground conditions.

It was a long day for the organisers with the first O/CNC2* test being judged at 7.44am while the last EI90 competitor set out across the country close to 6.30pm. The extremely busy Richard Nesbitt has decided to give up one of the many tasks he undertakes at NR events with the position of farrier on Saturday being filled by Leo Pele who is just out of his time and, at present, has nothing ready to compete.