IRISH riders achieved personal best scores at the FEI Dressage European Championships for Children on Horses and Juniors in Kronberg, Germany, last weekend.

Irish junior international rider Sophia Doheny and Batiqar, owned by the rider and her mother Louise, scored a personal best of 68.970% for 30th place in the FEI Junior team test and another personal best of 69.265% for equal 32nd place in the FEI Junior individual class.

Jessica Grogan and her own Christianson scored a personal best of 63.853% for 63rd place in the FEI Junior individual class with Cillian Curran and Carmel Curran’s Dancing Espri in 61st on 65.088%. With 16 teams competing there were 70 competitors in each class.

Irish individual rider Maeve Deverell and Annaharvey Dunowen, owned by Sam Deverell, scored 67.340% for 43rd place in the FEI Children on Horses preliminary competition B class.

The junior team, led by Anne Marie Dunphy, completed in 15th place in the team championships standings. This was the first ever Irish junior team to compete at the at FEI Dressage European Championships for Children and Juniors.

Controversy

In a controversial conclusion to the junior team competition, an appeal was lodged by the Austrian team over the scoring of the test of team member Fanny Jöbstl as they felt the rider was unfairly penalised when she was not afforded the opportunity to correct an error of course during the test. The error was missed by the president of the ground jury, who is the only one who can ring the bell, but not by the other ground jury members.

A decision was made to award the team gold medals to Germany on a score of 221.060%, team silver medals to Austria on 214.469% and Denmark on 214.243% and team bronze medals to Great Britain on 214.030%.

In a statement to Eurodressage, the FEI confirmed that it would be reviewing the decision to award silver medals to two teams with different scores acknowledging that the ‘action is not in accordance with FEI rules’.