SAMANTHA Dale brought up a hat-trick of EI100 (Amateur) wins last Saturday, when the Northern Region of Eventing Ireland held their third event and final Tyrella event of the season.

Dale recorded a pillar-to-post success on her Joanne Jarden-awarded dressage score (22.3 penalties) with Katherine O’Hare’s 15-year-old Calgot Hero gelding Keonan Hero. Three of the 16 starters failed to finish, two being eliminated for rider falls at fence six, the black-flagged birch ditch.

At the same level, there were 18 starters in the Junior class, 14 of whom completed with eight of the top 10 doing so on the dressage scores they were awarded by Coreen Abernethy.

The honours went to Belfast’s Poppy McMurray riding her mother Julie’s 15-year-old bay gelding Grafenstolz Distinction (29.8 penalties) who, also on his flat work mark, had finished eighth of 15 on his only previous outing of the season at the same Co Down venue in March.

The first phase winners on 22.5, Jodie Scully and Baskin Kapuka, quickly dropped down the standings with a dozen show jumping penalties before being eliminated when parting company across the country. One other combination also went their separate ways on the final leg, while two starters were eliminated in the show jumping ring.

Despite picking up eight penalties over the coloured poles, Éabha White and the Connemara gelding Carrickford Fast Boy, an 11-year-old grey son of Blackwoodland Basil, comfortably saw off their sole opponents in the EI100 (P).

The only starter in the EI110 (P) failed to finish while, at this level, Oisin Phelan and the eight-year-old ISH gelding Killahara Ailbhe, who graced the front page of the Irish Horse World last Saturday, were left to complete alone in the two-runner EI110 (J). At Lisgarvan the previous Sunday, they saw off 16 rivals.

Six combinations appeared before Rosie Gomes in the EI110 (Amateur). Her scores ranged from the 20.3 awarded to Britt Megahey on R Showman, who withdrew having picked up 12 show jumping penalties, and the 29.3 of Ros Morgan riding her 13-year-old AES-registered gelding Vos Surprise. That latter pairing were to claim the win, despite the addition of 4.4 show jumping penalties and being two seconds over the time on the final phase.

There were eight finishers in both the 10-runner EI90 (Amateur), won on her dressage score (27 penalties) by Katie McKee and the 11-year-old skewbald gelding Water Paint, and in the nine-runner Pony class at this level, where Lucy Ferris completed on her winning dressage score (27.8) with the 10-year-old Connemara gelding How Ya Sammy. Both winners had also been on the mark at Tyrella 2 earlier in the month.