THE Irish Pony Club’s national dressage championships, sponsored by Equieire, are taking place at CoilÓg next Tuesday, March 31st, at the start of the schools’ Easter holiday break.

The organisers, headed up by Kate Harvey, the IPC’s chair of dressage and combined training, closed the entries at 350. Six arenas will be in use throughout the day with a rota of 12 judges officiating. These will be backed up by a large crew of scribes, call-up stewards, scorers, etc. The results will go up live on the IPC’s Facebook page during the championships.

There are warm-up and competition classes at five levels and, in some cases, there are divides.

The honour of wearing the No 1 bib falls to North Kilkenny’s Tamson Clarke who, riding Downland Endeavour, will get the action underway in the Under 10 warm-up class in the Grass Arena at 8.30am. With one scheduled break, this class will run for roughly three hours. Immediately after this, Waterford’s Millie Toomey and North Kilkenny’s John Murphy will be first into the competition arenas on board Rookery Boomerang and Ajax respectively.

The Under 12s’ warm-up class has been divided into two sections, both starting at 9am and running to just after 11am. There was a far larger entry for the competition class at this level and here there are three divides. There are also two sections in the Junior warm-up class and, similarly, three divisions in the competition class. The Intermediate warm-up class, which starts at 8.30am, runs until 12 noon approximately after which there will be two sections in the competition class.

Disappointingly, there are just six entries in the Open warm-up class, which doesn’t start until 12.20pm, and this number increases to eight for the competition class, which begins at 2.30pm.

There are seven entries in the ‘Windsor Test’ class, for which riders had to qualify through one of the IPC classes staged at Dressage Ireland regional shows earlier in the year. These are Killinick’s Keira Crowther (Tomoka Spots), Bray’s Emily Grimes (Millridge Buachaill Bui), Kildare’s Holly Browne (Manusmore Result) and Annabelle Dunne (HFS Rock Shandy), Meath’s Clodagh McGauran (Pippas Harlequin Lady) and Grace Hanna (Grantstown Imperial) plus Carlow’s Ava Boyd (Ballinamoona Boy).

Mentioned elsewhere in this Pony Club coverage, Anne O’Connor will be at CoilÓg on Tuesday when, in addition to her IPC role, she will represent Treo Eile, who are to award a prize to the highest-placed thoroughbred in the competition classes at Junior, Intermediate and Open levels.

Elsewhere, ahead of their Barrier Health Spring Festival at Castle Irvine, Necarne (April 25th and 26th), Area 17 of The Pony Club is holding a Mini Spring Festival on Easter Monday, April 6th, at Danescroft Equestrian.

Staged by the North Down Branch, the Mini Festival is advertising arena eventing with classes from lead rein up to 60cm.

The dressage phase will be held on grass with the show jumping and cross-country phases on sand. There will also be jumping classes at PC70 and PC80 level (no dressage).

Entries for the Barrier Health Spring Festival close for Area 17 members on Tuesday next, March 31st. They will open for Irish Pony Club members on Saturday next, April 4th, when wait lists will also open. A reminder that passports will be checked on arrival at Castle Irvine, Necarne and vaccinations must be up to date.