THE only Dressage Ireland-affiliated show held throughout the country last weekend was Sunday’s third leg of the Northern Region’s HealysHaylage summer league at The Meadows, where all were delighted with the improvement in the weather.

Vida Tansey (List 1), who judged nine tests, faced her largest field of eight in the Elementary BD5 where her overall leaderboard was topped on 72.66% by Penny Murphy with her Irish Draught gelding Kontiki (Grange Bouncer - Glen Cross, by Holycross).

Murphy and the 12-year-old grey also won the three-runner Medium BD5 on 65.17 while the higher of the two scores entered for the result of the other Medium class, 64.06 in the DI65, was recorded by Linda McIlwaine and her seven-year-old ISH gelding Roundthorn Oreo (Vittorio - Amour Roundthorn, by Sandreo).

Riding her 14-year-old black gelding Kingsman, Mary Devine topped Tansey’s overall leaderboard in both Advanced Medium level classes, scoring 68.19 in the DI95 and 67.50 in the FEI Junior Individual test.

Lucy Adams saw off one rival to win the Tansey-judged Advanced DI100 with her 13-year-old Dutch-bred 148cm bay gelding Eskals King WA (65.14).

The sole starter in the Tansey-judged FEI Intermediate I was Dale Roberts with the 12-year-old Anteaus gelding Rademon Aachen (65.29) while, riding Karen McKeown’s Dutch Warmblood gelding VSH Gangster, a 15-year-old bay son of Zambuka, Nicole Peoples recorded an uncontested double before Tansey in the FEI Junior tests.

Coreen Abernethy (List 4) judged four tests, three at Novice level and the Elementary DI55, where she awarded her highest score (66.25) to both Amy Tubman on Comanche Arrow and Jane Smith with Sorrento Moon.

As she had the higher collective score (60.59), Tubman claimed the win riding Cindy Cunningham’s 12-year-old appaloosa gelding.

Nine combinations, not all the same, appeared before Abernethy in the two non-restricted Novice classes. Her overall winner on 72.17 of the DI24A was Nicole Robinson with her nine-year-old Warmblood gelding Tantoni Leonidas, with Clare McVeigh topping the overall leaderboard in the BD5 with her ISH mare R’Temis (Tolan R - Rimm Diamond, by Rockrimmon Silver Diamond).

This was just a second start under DI rules for the 11-year-old, who has done a small amount of show jumping with Charlotte Harding.

Annie Morrow and her mother Kathy’s eight-year-old palomino gelding Liberty’s Benjamin, who represented Area 17 of The Pony Club/Northern Ireland at Royal Windsor, won the Abernethy-judged Junior Novice DI24A on 67.33, beating their sole rivals, Harriet O’Hagan and her mother Orlaith’s 15-year-black mare OOS Fairytale. That combination were winners earlier of the Junior Preliminary on 62.50.

That two-runner class was judged by Claire Ewing (List 5), who faced eight combinations in the Preliminary DI18 where she awarded her highest overall score of 71.25 to regional chairperson Joan Adrain riding her Oldenburg mare Fendi Jewel, a chesnut five-year-old by Desperado.

The second overall highest score (68.75) was recorded by Craig Hills on Lougherne Walk About, who topped Ewing’s leaderboard in the BD5 on 68.33.

A five-year-old ISH gelding by Antaeus, Jane Allen-Collins’s home-bred Lougherne Walk About is the sole produce registered on CapaillÓir out of the Lougherne Corea mare Lougherne Like A Diamond, who was out of a Diamond Chin mare out of a mare by French Wood.