THERE was a great atmosphere around last weekend’s Association of Irish Riding Clubs’ annual two-day Festival in Stradbally Hall and that in spite of very mixed weather.

The forecast warned that such might be the case but that didn’t stop many members from camping for one or two nights. Even the heavy rain which came in on Friday evening failed to dampen the spirit of early arrivals as evidenced by their Instagram usage in the wee hours!

Rain wasn’t too much of a problem on Saturday but there were some extremely strong gusts of wind, one of which overturned two portaloos between the show jumping and showing areas. Show jumps fell down at times and people could be seen running to the camping area to tie down tents.

Writing of portaloos, there could be more of them around the grounds and a bit of an upgrade should be considered.

It was good that the retail area in the village had not only expanded but also that it attracted plenty of business.

Horse First’s Paddy Hughes, who this weekend is attending the four-star Bolesworth International Horse Show in England before heading down to Monaco, paid his first visit to the AIRC Festival this year and was delighted to have done so.

Plenty of work goes on in advance of the weekend, such as erecting the showing and jumping rings and the dressage arenas and setting up the Village. A good move made by the organisers this year was to have some speakers closer to both the camping area and the showing rings. This added greatly to the atmosphere especially as, when not making announcements, the weekend’s commentator, Paul Nolan, kept the music going.

While all the horses and ponies competing at the Festival are much-loved by their owners, few are as well-known outside the riding club sphere as Adventure de Kannan and Killinick Bouncer.

Ridden by his long-term owner, Karen Swann of the Newpark Club, the 2014 Hickstead Derby winner Adventure de Kannan had a busy and varied weekend placing in dressage, the musical ride and, naturally enough, show jumping at Advanced Primary level and winning the riding club horse class at that grade.

Hopefully, this latest achievement will be mentioned when the 17-year-old one-eyed Kannan gelding is officially retired from international competition next Sunday at Hickstead, where he also won the Speed Derby, the Eventing Grand Prix, the All England Grand Prix, the Queen Elizabeth II Cup and the British Jumping Derby.

The 2015 Dublin Horse Show Irish Draught performance champion, Killinick Bouncer, was ridden by Carne’s Sue Corish at the weekend, placing in dressage and show jumping at Intermediate and Advanced Intermediate levels.

The 13-year-old son of Grange Bouncer, who will be back at the RDS in August for the Horseware Ireland team show jumping championship, won Sunday’s performance class for the native breed.