THERE were over 10 hours of dressage in both arenas during Saturday’s Eastern Region Show at Ballyrogan Stud where a number of doubles were recorded throughout the day.

Oscar O’Connor struck in the dedicated Junior section where he won both Elementary classes on the six-year-old Oldenburg gelding Funkstar, scoring 68.47% in the DI52 judged by Mark Ruddock (British Dressage List 1) and 68.57 in the DI55 judged by Michael Moore (List 2a).

At the same level, but in non-restricted company, Collette Ward partnered her nine-year-old Pura Raza Espanola gelding Jazz XI to victory in the Ruddock-judged DI52 (70%), seeing off seven rivals in the process, and in the three-runner DI55 (66.79) judged by Moore.

At Advanced Medium level, Sonya McCormack and her traditionally-bred Irish Sport Horse gelding Coosan Lucky Guy were the only combination to appear before Ruddock in the DI90 (61.76%) after which they saw off one challenge in the FEI Junior Team Test where Moore awarded them a score of 66.06.

Gilly Crawford recorded an Advanced Medium double on her nine-year-old ISH mare Majestic Heartbreaker. She partnered the Womanizer bay to victory on 65.43% in the three-runner DI100 judged by Ruddock and 64.53 in the FEI Young Riders Preliminary test where she was the only competitor to appear before Moore.

Lydia Dawson also scored twice, guiding her six-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Odjee Toto (74%) to victory in the 10-strong Novice 24A judged by Bernie Webb (List 3a) and then landing the three-runner, Moore-judged Prix St George on her 16-year-old ISH gelding Clonswords Alf.

Cael Shanahan doubled up when recording an uncontested win on the unregistered 13-year-old ISH mare Nice One Clover (63.45%) in the Junior Novice DI21, judged by Jillie Rogers (63.45%), and on Suzanne Kendrick’s Anglo European Studbook-registered seven-year-old gelding Santana (65.78) in the Ruddock-judged, four-runner Medium DI65.

Rogers judged the two best-supported classes of the day, viz the 16-runner Preliminary DI5A, where it took a look at the collective marks to see that the overall leaderboard was headed by Caroline Lynch on Robert McHugh’s five-year-old Irish Draught mare Hio Easter Rose (75.71%), and the 17-strong Novice DI21 where she awarded the day’s highest score (76.21) to Joanne Logue riding her seven-year-old ISH mare Little Lottie.