BUILDING on their success at the previous week’s CDI Roosendaal, Horse Sport Ireland’s pony dressage high performance squad fielded their first ever Nations Cup team in Hagen, Germany, last weekend.

Tara Hayes, Emily Kate Robinson and Laura Dennehy each produced consistent tests which left Ireland seventh overall, on a combined total of 197.308%.

The host nation topped the leaderboard and look likely to repeat this feat at the European Championships in Denmark in August.

As she did at Roosendaal, Emily Kate Robinson led the Irish charge, piloting Elisabeth Ahn’s Crown Imagine to a score of 65.812%. Tara Hayes was close behind her on a mark of 65.726% while Laura Dennehy was awarded 64.744% for her ride on Julie Lockey’s Ella, one of the two youngest ponies in the competition.

Saturday’s individual test once again saw Robinson emerge as the best of the Irish riders, and her score of 65.366% was enough to qualify her for the freestyle final on Sunday, alongside Dennehy and Ella. Hayes meanwhile made it through to the small final, in which she finished a creditable second to Britain’s Megan Barratt, earning 64.471% on board Bantiss Holy Joe.

Robyn O’Neill contested the CDIP at this show with the pony she rode at last year’s European Championships, Belsasser, as did Emily Kate Robinson on her veteran campaigner Tisrara Hill. O’Neill bettered the scores she achieved the previous week to set her new international personal best at 65.855% while Robinson produced typically clean and consistent performances resulting in a sixth place in the small final.

Horse Sport Ireland’s new junior dressage programme was also represented in Hagen by the Sue Smallman-trained Sophie Daly and her mother’s 11-year-old Ehrentusch gelding Eicke II. Daly succeeded in qualifying for this year’s European Championships, which will be held in Oliva Nova, Spain, by scoring 62.351% in Saturday’s individual test. She then went on to achieve a podium placing by finishing third in Sunday’s small final on a score of 64.958%.

Chef d’equipe Anne Marie Dunphy said of her riders that, “since the start of the high performance programme three years ago, we have made steady progress in terms of athlete development and pony quality. To field a Nations Cup team at a top show like the Future Champions at Hagen is a significant achievement and our riders gave a very good account of themselves in top class company.”