YOUTH trumped experience in the EI115 at Ballindenisk’s mid-week fixture last Wednesday, where Junior rider Niamh Verkade finished best of the 14 runners with Duniro. Verkade took over the ride on the 13-year-old gelding by the Connemara stallion Abbeyfield Comet from Sian Coleman midway through last season, and this occasion marked the combination’s first start at EI115 level. They jumped double clear to finish on their Marie Hennessy-awarded dressage score of 32.5.

Fellow Junior, Izzy Barratt, took the reserve spot with Oakfield Cooley, the same position they occupied in the CCIJ2*-L at the venue’s Spring International earlier this year. They finished just one second over the optimum time across country to add 0.4 to their first phase mark of 33.2. Nicola Ennis finished on 35.8 to take third with the thoroughbred Devils Cape, while dressage leaders Momo Sheehy and Da Vinci dropped down the order due to cross-country time faults.

It was a red-letter day for Verkade, as she took a second victory in the EI100(J). On her second start with Michael Ryan’s The Outlaw, having finished fourth at Clyda just three days earlier, she finished on a score of 28.5. Tadgh O’Haire was less than a mark adrift in second, after he maintained a clean sheet in the jumping phases to complete on his dressage score of 29.3 with his father’s six-year-old mare HFS Valentine.

O’Haire took another second place in the EI110(J), this time riding the experienced campaigner Christopher Robin 2 to a final score of 31.8. All bar one of the eight runners in this class incurred no penalties in the jumping phases, and O’Haire was sandwiched on the podium by Maeve Deverell. Unsurprisingly given his recent selection for the Junior European Dressage championships, it was Deverell’s multitasking gelding Annaharvey Dunowen who led from the outset to win on 28.5, while Annaharvey Rozendal took third on 33.5.

Entries were modest in the pony classes, where Ellen O’Neill and Cadarn D’Heolan were best of the three runners in the EI110(P). The same number of entrants completed the EI100(P), where the combination of Sarah Pettit and the Connemara pony Ballyerk Black Beauty recorded their second consecutive win at the level.

Amanda Goldsbury and Cooley Economics won the EI100 at Ballindenisk last week \ Justin Black Horse Sport Images

First victory

David Raeburn won the EI110 with his own JJ Big Red, a nine-year-old gelding by Sligo Candy Boy for whom this was a first win under Eventing Ireland rules. The pair led the field after the Paula Geiger-judged first phase, and added nothing further to their mark of 28.

Ian Cassells enjoyed another good run with Tom McCarthy’s MGH Rioja to finish second exactly one mark behind, while Michael Ryan took third place aboard The Domino Effect.

Cassells also finished second in the EI100, this time riding Carol Gee’s Tresor V’t Dauwhof, but the business end of the leaderboard here was dominated by Amanda Goldsbury.

The New Zealander took the win riding Cooley Economics, a six-year-old gelding by Mylord Carthago, who was making his eventing debut, and who finished on his leading dressage score of 25.8. Goldsbury also finished fifth and sixth on identical scores of 30.8, riding Alltogether Cooley and Cooley One respectively. Edie Murray-Hayden and Carraroe Coilin were third.