IT was a busy weekend in Area 17 of The Pony Club (Northern Ireland) with the North Derry branch holding the area dressage trials at Ballyarnett on Saturday while the East Downs staged the tetrathlon trials around Downpatrick on Friday and Saturday.

The shooting and swimming phases took place in the Down Leisure Centre in the town, the running at Tyrella House and the ride over a cross-country course designed and built by David O’Connor at Tullymurry EC where, today, the Northern Region of Evening Ireland stages a one-day event.

Members of the Irish Pony Club were invited to compete at the Pegus-sponsored trials and made their presence felt in and around Downpatrick when winning six of the nine team competitions.

The open boys’ event fell to the hosts’ quartet of Andrew Turley, Ewan Findlay, Rory McMullan and Paddy Erskine. The last-named won the individual competition on a score of 4,427 points ahead of the Munster Lads’ representative Leo Micklem who completed on 4,266. The IPC girls proved dominant at this level, winning and placing second in the team competition and filling the first five places in the individual rankings with Sophie Lowe topping the leaderboard on 4,344 points.

The Leinster Lads’ squad of Tim O’Brien, Dillon McAuliffe, James Drumm and Fionn Campbell won the Intermediate boys’ team competition unopposed. Drumm topped the individual scores on 4,315 with O’Brien placing second on 4,172.

Winners of the confined event on 10,668 points, the North Down trio of Charlotte de Montmorency, Christine McVeigh and Anna Brown were no match for the Munster Blazers team of Hannah Gayer, Megan O’Leary, Sarah Seymour and Elena Sheedy whose completion score of 11,368 was boosted by Gayer’s individual winning total of 4,168.

Disappointingly for the Area 17 teams, the visitors proved victorious down through the junior and minimus levels also, but the Iveaghs’ Jack Scott put up a good performance when, on 4,423, he finished second to the Leinster Tigers’ Jack Sargent (4,571) in the junior boys’ individual event.

DIRECTION

Under the direction of new District Commissioner Nicola Coxford and her assistant Wendy Herbinson, the North Derry branch ran an excellent area dressage trials at Ballyarnett on Saturday. They thanked the local council which was very supportive of the organisers in providing such a lovely venue.

Disappointingly, there were only a few open members in attendance with the Iveaghs’ Laura King, Roisin Muirhead and Ciara Muirhead winning the team competition unopposed.

In the ride-off against her clubmates and others from the Killultagh branch, King topped the scores on the 13-year-old Cruising gelding Youngstars Cheetah and was presented with the Cunningham French cup by Declan Cullen of sponsor Pegus Horse Feeds.