WHILE the focus of attention among international dressage fans last Saturday was on the world cup finals in Gothenburg, back home day one of the national winter finals in Cavan Equestrian Centre was of more immediate concern to members of Dressage Ireland.
The action got underway at eight o’clock that morning when the busy Tara Oliver appeared in Arena 1 before Gwyneth Lewis and Vida Tansey for the first Preliminary category three competition and, finished just after 5.30pm on Sunday by which time Rachel Dowley had won three titles.
The Carrick-On-Suir rider claimed the Intermédiare I final (68.088%) on her own Hanoverian gelding Cadens, the now 12-year-old Hockadel bay on whom she won the five-year-old title at the 2012 national championships – and six other national titles in the interim.
Dowley also won the Novice category three title on Insticator B.S. (71.170), narrowly beating Marguerite McSweeney on Fidette (71.152) into second; and the Preliminary category three championship with Just A Ball B.S. (71.198), ahead of Oliver on Senators Rhonaldo (70.678).
The six-year-old Florencio gelding Insticator B.S., winner of the five-year-old and novice freestyle championships here in September, and the five-year-old Furstenball mare Just A Ball B.S. are being produced by Dowley for Britain’s Julie Lockley who bred the pair at her Bramley Stud in west Yorkshire.
Just A Ball is out of the Mooimann mare Cascade Aimbry who is the dam of Insticator’s dam, Full Fusion B.S. (by Blue Hors Zack), who finished second in the Prix St Georges at the British championships last week.
DUNPHY DOMINATES
On Saturday, the Prix St Georges was won by Dowley’s trainer, Anne Marie Dunphy, on her black Hanoverian mare Her Highness Willow. Judges Dane Rawlins and Vida Tansey had Dunphy and her 13-year-old His Highness mare on a combined score of 65.956% with David Freeney placing second on the similarly-aged CLS Bram (65.662), while Elizabeth Frayling finished third on the 17-year-old Ferro gelding, Variant H (65.662).
Anne-Marie Dunphy and Her Highness Willow won the Prix St Georges at the National Winter Dressage Finals in Cavan. Photo Sagittarian Photography
Following the well-publicised theft of her trailer, Sorrell Klatzko was able to travel to Cavan with her mare Highlight thanks to Julianne Gaffney and the team at JAG Equestrian. Klatzko’s efforts to get there proved well worthwhile as her 15-year-old Hohenstein mare won the Intermédiare II final (65.441%), ahead of Cadens (63.824), before scoring 64.457 at Grand Prix level.
Barry Higgins tried hard to secure the Preliminary category one title for male riders but, in spite of landing Sunday’s competition on his nine-year-old mare, Norwood Black Betty, he had to settle for second (69.219%) in the championship to Rebecca Keane and the 12-year-old skewbald gelding Jolly Joxer (70.521).
Co Wicklow secondary school maths teacher Niamh Nolan and her Irish Draught gelding Toberpatrick Tom Boy, a five-year-old by Ballybrack Diamond, topped the scores on Sunday and in the Preliminary category two championship (70.625) despite just finishing third on Saturday to north Co Dublin’s Jenny Doran and her home-bred seven-year-old Captain Clover gelding, Horseplay Clover Star, who were to claim the reserve spot (69.948).
Championship honours did however come Higgins’s way at Novice level where he and Norwood Black Betty claimed the category one title (67.467) ahead of well-known Tara Hill Riding Club member Edel King and her 19-year-old Hanoverian gelding Don Quixote (67.398).
The new Novice category two winter champion is Gurteen College equine lecturer Aisling Deverell whose combined scores over the two days with the home-bred Irish Sport Horse gelding Annaharvey Dunowen, a six-year-old dun by Radolin, came to 68.745%.
Glenswilly’s Mary Devine, who beat Deverell into second on Saturday, filled the reserve position with her seven-year-old gelding Kingsman (67.768).
Third overall (67.090) and second to the champions in Sunday’s competition, came Eimear White and the 11-year-old ISH gelding Weather The Storm. The Kasmayo bay, who looked a promising eventer as a young horse, unfortunately suffered a serious tendon injury in March 2016 which required two operations with no guarantee that he would ever come right.
However, ‘Mikey’ returned to work last December and, having stayed sound following a few unaffiliated outings, achieved his required qualifying scores at Dressage Ireland shows and so travelled to Cavan last weekend where he posted such good results.
Former racehorse trainer Nessa Toher Shannon had a busy weekend with three horses but, most satisfyingly, went home with the Elementary category two title which she claimed on her 10-year-old Dutch-bred gelding El Nino (68.661) ahead of event rider Gilly Crawford and the Grainne Sugars-bred Calliaghstown Silver Doolin (68.572), a 2009 mare by Silver Banner.
Well-known dressage coach Emma Kieran was a clear winner of the Elementary category three title on Margaret Coonan’s 10-year-old Scandic gelding Erastus H (69.152). Joanne Logue, who finished reserve with the seven-year-old Dutch-bred mare Kashmir’s Hadena (67.500), beat Kieran into second in Saturday’s opening session but dropped to sixth on Sunday when the champion came out on top.
The award for the highest-placed Irish Draught at the finals went to Beezies Big Brother (Simone Hession Quinn); that for the highest-placed thoroughbred to Ballymorran Heaven Sent (Angela Penman) and for the highest-placed Connemara to Carn Verdon Boy (Alana Cazabon).