THE Irish Pony Club’s representation at this year’s JCB Pony Club Championships at Offchurch Bury in Warwickshire was restricted to dressage where the Kildare’s Ella Butler, Rachael Doyle, Ruby Hughes and Lucy Maughan lined out at Intermediate level last Thursday week having won at the IPC’s Festival in Barnadown late last month.

On a converted score of 23, the quartet finished sixth of 22 teams as the Cottesmore Branch ran out clear-cut winners on six ahead of the Mendip Farmers (13) and North Warwickshire (15).

The best performances individually were recorded by Doyle, who finished joint-fifth in Section I3 with the Irish Sport Horse gelding Lyra Oberon (68.71%), a nine-year-old chesnut by Mermus R, and by Hughes who was seventh in Section I4 with the ISH gelding Vogel, a seven-year-old Corrado II chesnut on whom she won an EI100 at Crecora (2) last month.

Maughan partnered her father Fergus’s 15-year-old bay gelding Vally View Sammy, with whom she has been competing at Novice level with Dressage Ireland this year, while Butler rode the 13-year-old skewbald gelding Lenovo. The team was kindly sponsored by Jod-Z Equestrian Clothing.

Also at Intermediate level, Area 17 was represented in the dressage to music championship by the Killultaghs’ Hollie Fitzpatrick who finished ninth (70.56%) on the ISH gelding Admirvals Voyage, a 23-year-old chesnut by Golden Cliff. At Novice level, East Antrim’s Erin McCrea was ninth in Section 1 on the ISH mare Rubane Candy (71.67), a 10-year-old OB Active grey on whom she won an EI90 at Tyrella (4) in April.