“I’M delighted with how the day went,” said land owner and event organiser, Will Kearney, after Frankfort 2 last Sunday. “A slightly more technical cross-country and show jumping had an influence on the results. We had no rain really in the lead up to the event, so we had sanded parts of the show jumping and cross-country in anticipation of hard ground. Saturday evening, it started to rain, so we spiked the whole cross-country track to allow the water down into the ground a bit. It worked well to take the sting out of the ground, but made the soft growth grass a bit slippery after only being mown three weeks previously.

“I’d like to mention a massive thank you to all the judges, officials and volunteers for all their help in running our first two events of the year,” he continued. “We’ll be loading some of the fences this week and heading over the road to Glandoran for the next leg of the Leinster League.” This league boasts a total prize fund in excess of €25,000, and the current standings can be viewed at leinsterleague.ie.

Quartz shows his quality

A total of 25 combinations contested the EI110 at the Wexford venue, and Cathal Daniels emerged as the best of them riding Paul Donovan’s KBS Sportsfield Quartz. Daniels was lying first and third after the Jillie Rogers-judged dressage phase with Queen of Nosa Z and CDS Maple Syrup respectively, but show jumping penalties with one and a slower cross-country round with the other saw him slip down the order.

KBS Sportsfield Quartz’s score of 28.5 left him in fourth place after the first phase, but a clear round show jumping and 9.2 time penalties cross-country saw him climb the leader board to take the win.

Despite being slightly faster cross-country, Cara Padden and the Traditional Irish Horse In Command couldn’t quite catch Daniels, and they finished second by a margin of only half a mark. Andrew Walsh was third, adding a handful of time faults across the jumping phases to the dressage score of 31.5 he achieved with Lord Brandon.

Entries were small in the restricted classes at this level, and Eve Doyle claimed the win in the four-runner EI110(J). Riding the 13-year-old son of Rehy High Society, King of Moveen, Doyle rolled a pole in the show jumping before putting in a fast cross-country round for only 1.6 time faults to finish on 43.9. The same number of entrants contested the EI110 (Amateur), and here Lorna Murphy topped the leader board with TikTok Kiwi, on the combination’s first run of the season.