EASILY the best supported of the three open classes at Barnadown, which were added to the Eventing Ireland national championships schedule at the request of riders, was the EI90 which attracted an entry of 10 and a starting line-up of eight.

A week after her daughter Ciara had won the 50-runner CCI2*-L at the Ballindenisk international horse trials on board Ashwood Rio, Edwina O’Connor made her one and only appearance of the EI season a winning one here on the Irish Draught gelding Ashwood Reggie (29.7 penalties).

Despite finishing two seconds over the time across the country, the locally-based combination comfortably recorded an all-the-way victory to score from Co Waterford’s Ciara Power who completed on her dressage score with the five-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding MBF Philouniki (37).

While this was a career-first EI start for Ashwood Reggie, an 11-year-old bay gelding by Keamore Diamond Clover who was bred in Co Wicklow by David Miley out of the Fast Silver mare Beara Lady, he competes actively in Amateur (A) show jumping and Riding Club activities and is also very well-known on the showing scene.

He came into this season with a top-class cv which he added to by qualifying for the older performance ID class at Dublin in August, when he finished second to the stallion DS Ballagh Bouncer. The following month, he carried O’Connor to victory in the 90cm amateur summer series final at Mullingar Equestrian.

“I don’t know when I last competed with Eventing Ireland, but it was a long, long time ago,” said Edwina, who shares ownership of Ashwood Reggie with her mother Noreen. “I’m so busy running after Ciara that I only get a bit of a chance to compete myself, but wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip by when the event was so close.

“We had a hectic weekend as my younger daughter Róisín had her fifth birthday on Sunday - she’s well-known in eventing circles as she has travelled as team mascot to France in 2023, when Ciara was on the European pony team, and to Strzegom in Poland in August for the junior Europeans. She was at Barnadown on Sunday, helping Mam who was on fence duty, while my partner Stephen (Laird, the equine dentist) gave me a hand washing down Reggie!”

John Tilley, who finished runner-up in the NutriScience Equine EI110 national championship with Monbeg Crystal Clear, narrowly landed the three-runner EI100 open on his dressage score with Kilkenny International’s Zangersheide mare MBF Misty Morning (29.1), who was having her third start. With a fence down show jumping on her second start, the five-year-old Karan Z grey finished third of 18 in an EI100 at Lisgarvan House last month.

There were three starters also in the EI80 open won by Georgia Kelly on Susan Black’s home-bred Connemara mare Doireánn. Also having her third EI start, this seven-year-old grey/roan is by Rebel Mick out of Roundpark Dorothy (by Earl of Castlefrench). Kelly has represented the Island Hunt Branch of the Irish Pony Club on Doireánn in dressage, combined training and eventing.