THE Horse Sport Ireland Autumn Development Series in dressage reached its conclusion in finals’ day last Sunday at Greenogue Equestrian where the weather conditions may not have been ideal for the discipline but that just underlined the high standard of riding.

There was no categorisation of riders in this series where the sponsors put huge emphasis on Irish-bred horses. They awarded a prize of €175 to the highest-placed Irish-bred in each class and €350 to the breeder of the winner in each of the three age classes which were confined to horses bred in this country.

The series was run by a sub-committee of Dressage Ireland which was represented at each of the five qualifying rounds by DI board member Mark Ruddock who once again thanked HSI for its support of dressage during this pandemic-affected year.

“The series was better embraced by riders than we had hoped for with huge entries at the qualifiers, which were held at HSI-approved venues, and a great turn-out on Sunday,” commented Ruddock who is based on the Curragh at M&S Simply Dressage.

“A lot of work went into running the series and huge credit must go to Marguerite (Kavanagh, chair of DI) as she had a huge amount to deal with, waiting on information from the Government and HSI as to how we could proceed and then all the Covid-19 protocols.

“There have only been age classes at the National Championships in Ireland but I think this is the way to go in the future and will move dressage on to a par with eventing and show jumping in this country. We saw some lovely young horses throughout the series and hopefully more breeders will start thinking about breeding dressage horses.”

Marguerite Kavanagh had two reasons to thank HSI on Sunday. Firstly, as chairman of DI, she said: “‘Horse Sport Ireland have been phenomenal in their support of Dressage Ireland in their sponsorship of the Autumn Development Series. This initiative gave riders something to aspire to as both our Winter and National Championships had to be cancelled. The series kept riders motivated during lockdown and, most importantly, it acknowledged Irish breeders and producers.”

Home-bred

Kavanagh rode two horses in four finals on Sunday and in finishing third in the Advanced Medium on Fursten (67.37%) she picked up additional prize-money as the home-bred Furstenball gelding, who is out of a Carismo mare, was the highest-placed Irish-bred in the class.

The winner of this Michael Moore-judged six-runner final was a newcomer to dressage this year, Tom Walsh. The well-known Co Kildare show jumping coach achieved a score of 68.42% with Aisling Curtis’s Sir Donnerhall Skaggerak, a 10-year-old bay gelding by Sir Donnerhall out of a Contendro mare. Rosemary Gaffney finished second with her 11-year-old Christ mare Chantal 2 (67.63).

Two other male riders won higher level finals on Sunday with Kevin Acres, who is based at Greenogue Equestrian, claiming the title in the Prix St George with Con McCarthy’s Dutch Warmblood gelding Ganesh, a nine-year-old by Jazz out of the TCN Partout mare Partouch. Ganesh competed in his first PSG in mid-September. Dermot Cannon judged the PSG and the remaining higher-graded finals.

The Intermediaire I was won on a score of 66.10% by David Freeney with CLS Bram whose breeding is unrecorded. The 14-year-old gelding is owned by Freeney and Stephen Byrne who purchased him in 2016. He had very little mileage up at that stage as he was a very bad traveller. He has improved in that regard and Freeney competed with him at Medium and Advanced Medium level at Hickstead two years ago.

HSI’s dressage high performance manager of the underage squads, Anne Marie Dunphy did get to leave the country this year as the Pony Europeans went ahead in Hungary in August. Back in Ireland, she was keen to take part in the development series and was rewarded with victory on Sunday in the Intermediaire II which she won on a score of 65% with Her Highness Willow, a 14-year-old black Hanoverian mare by His Highness.

With no trip to Japan this year for the Olympics, Heike Holstein competed at three international shows in Europe with Sambuca.

They rounded off their campaign much nearer to home on Sunday when landing the Grand Prix on a score of 70.65% with their sole rivals, Carolyn Mellor (who was happy to travel to support the series) and VSH Gouverneur M finishing on 67.17%. Holstein not only won the richest class at the finals but was further rewarded financially as the 11-year-old Samarant mare Sambuca was home-bred out of the Limmerick mare Astoria.