This reduction can only be due to the clashing of dates with children on horses Europeans in Arezzo and the staging of the pony Europeans in Ireland the following week.

Nonetheless, Irish youngsters continued to do themselves and their country proud as the won the first two classes of the first day.

Ciaran Nallon and The Silver Legend won the 128cms open on day one, ahead of Charlotte Houston and Kilcreene Apollo, with Nallon also claiming third on Millfield Papoose. The 138 open also had Nallon in the winner’s enclosure on Beauty while day two saw Houston win the 128 open on Little Jack Spratt.

Team day kick started on day three and Ireland was fortunate enough to be able to field three teams, one in each height category. The 128cms team event went to a jump-off between Scotland and Ireland, who was represented by Charlotte Houston (Little Jack Spratt), Leah Stack (Peppino Il Grande), Robbie Coote (Dans Da Man) and Ciaran Nallon (The Silver Legend). However, Scotland took the win after jumping a faultless third round as Ireland notched up faults and couldn’t better their score.

The 138cms team event also went to a jump-off, again featuring the Irish, only this time against team England. The extremely tight competition saw a 1.17 second time difference act as decider which saw England take the top spot and the Irish team of Ciaran Nallon (Beauty), Abbie Sweetnam (Never Last Spartacus), Charlotte Houston (Woodfield Spartacus) and Robbie Clancy (Drumaclan Flight) take second.

In the 148cms team event Ireland fielded a relatively inexperienced quartet against an English team which was made up of three of their European squad for Millstreet. Unfortunately the Irish team did not make the second round but the athletes gained a lot from their experience.

On Sunday the HOYS qualifier was held and, whilst the Irish are not eligible to jump at the final, they certainly dominated the classes at Wales and West with Ciaran Nallon (The Silver Legend) winning the 128cms and Nallon, riding Joanne Houston’s Bessington Grange Mist, taking the top spot in the 148cms pony show-jumper of the year.