IRELAND was represented at many levels at last week’s Hartpury Festival of Dressage in England with Dane Rawlins placing eighth in Sunday’s CDI3* Grand Prix Special with Espoire.

The Hickstead-based Irish rider achieved a score of 66.723% on the 10-year-old Westfalian gelding as Britain’s Carl Hester topped the leaderboard on 75.894 with the British Hanoverian gelding Hawtins Delicato.

In Friday’s Grand Prix, Rawlins and Espoire finished 18th (65.935) as Hester and Hawtins Delicato filled the runner-up slot (76.543) behind their teammates, Charlotte Dujardin and Mount St John Freestyle (81.891).

The following day, Dujardin and the 10-year-old Hanoverian mare routed the opposition in the Grand Prix Freestyle when winning on a score of 87.600 with their nearest rivals, Britain’s Hayley Watson-Greaves and Rubins Nite, scoring 77.960.

Bangor native Abi Lyle had a good show with Fenella Ross’s eight-year-old Fabregas gelding Farrel on whom she finished 14th in the Intermediate I Freestyle (67.675%) on Sunday, having been 11th of 39 in the Intermediate I (68.118) a day earlier.

Making her international debut for Ireland, Scotland-based Fenella Ross partnered her own 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Creatzo to finish 25th in both the Prix St Georges (66.412) on Friday and the Intermediate I (65.853) on Saturday, while Katie Johnston competed in the same classes with her Dutch Warmblood 14-year-old, After Midnight.

All five riders who travelled to Hartpury for the para dressage CPEDI3* progressed to Friday’s Freestyle stage where the highest placing came through Grade I competitor Michael Murphy who, riding Skjoldsgaard Hippo-Vo, finished second in the Grade I Freestyle behind Britain’s Mari Duward-Akhurst on the 20-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Sky O’Hara.

Riding Jacqui Ross’s Dutch Warmblood gelding Jefferson P, Abi Lyle won the Hickstead five-year-old national final on a score of 8.1 points, with Kilkenny’s Rachel Dowley placing fourth (7.44) on Julie Lockley’s Furstenball mare, Just A Ball B.S.

Also riding for Lockley, Dowley partnered the Florencio gelding Insticator B.S. to place fifth (7.64) in the six-year-old division won by Britain’s Michael Eilberg with his own MSH Dante (8.82).

Kildare’s Belinda Brereton also competed at Hartpury, among her placings being a fourth-place finish in a section of the FEI Intermediate class with Captain Negro C (68.86).