AS six combinations are vying for just two places to represent Ireland at the Tokyo Paralympics, Grade IV rider Rosemary Gaffney made sure to keep her name in the selectors’ sights with some excellent scores at a dry Raheen Na Gun last Saturday.
Before List 1 judges, Dermot Cannon and Vida Tansey, Gaffney and her Danish Warmblood mare Werona, a daughter of Painted Black, scored 72.15% in the team test and 70.85 in the individual, while that 12-year-old’s similarly-aged Hanoverian stable-companion by Christ, Chantal 2, was awarded 72.25 in the team and 72.68 in the individual. Gaffney is heading to a CPEDI3* in The Netherlands next month with both mares prior to the final selection.
Development squad member Jessica McKenna posted the higher of her scores (65.59) in the Tansey-judged Grade III individual test on the Irish Sport Horse gelding Rockmills, an 11-year-old by Vancouver.
Sue Smallman recorded one of four uncontested higher-graded victories on Saturday with Gloriant H but also partnered the 10-year-old Uphill gelding to a comfortable success (65.44) in the two-runner Prix St George.
Another dual winner at the Kilkenny venue was Category 3 rider Liz Frayling who, on board the Oldenburg mare Bedelia, was awarded the top score in both Preliminary classes. In the Lynne Cassidy-judged DI5, Frayling and the six-year-old chesnut scored 69.14 while in the Jane Whitaker-assessed BD15 they came out best on 71.60
Second in the Category 3 division here on 63.40 with Largento, Emily Kate Robinson and that 2016 Dutch Warmblood gelding were awarded an impressive score of 73% by Vida Tansey when performing the Young Dressage Horse FEI four-year-old test.
The Waterford competitor, who is a member of Horse Sport Ireland’s high-performance Young Rider squad, was making her seasonal debut on Saturday. She was delighted with the home-bred bay who is by Lingh out of the Jazz mare Vitania and is thus a full-brother to her Elementary ride, Kekepania.
“Largento is quite big and is taking a little while to mature,” said Robinson. “However, he has been showing great promise in our training and is a very easy horse to work with. I was delighted with him on Saturday which was his first ever show. He was very well behaved and, although a bit wobbly in his first test, he grew in confidence for the second and I was thrilled with our score. We will do the five-year-old test next time.”
Honours
Category 1 rider Emma Stephenson competed at Preliminary and Novice level on Dromad Moran Dancer and, on 67.10, claimed the honours in the Cassidy-judged DI N23 with the grey Connemara, a 10-year-old son of Moorland Macdara. The second Novice test, the Whitaker-judged BD22, went the way of another Category 1 competitor, Anne Lynch, whose sole ride of the day came on the 12-year-old gelding User Friendly (66.90).
Category 2 rider Raphael Walsh topped Whitaker’s scores in the Elementary BD43 with the 12-year-old bay gelding Syringo (67.07) but, in front of Cassidy, that combination was bettered by Category 1 competitor Mary Deirdre Kinsella and her Irish Sport Horse gelding Tullyroan Cracker, a 12-year-old chesnut by Diamond Cracker.
When their seniors were finished, it was great to see the High Performance Pony squad riders make their first competitive appearance of the season and it was the two who were on the Irish team at the European championships last year who dominated the FEI classes.
Vida Tansey judged the team test where she awarded her top score to Carlow’s Rachel Carr and her father Gareth’s 15-year-old Welsh mare Calelvador May Blossom (70.43), a palomino by Cirrus with Oscar O’Connor finishing second on Top Hero 2 (70.14).
In the Dermot Cannon-judged individual test, Co Wexford’s O’Connor and his mother Susan’s 11-year-old Westphalian gelding by Top Champy again had to settle for the runner-up slot (67.03) behind Carr and Calelvador May Blossom (67.30).