THE Shillelagh Branch hosted Area 1’s Festival combined training and dressage qualifier last Saturday at the Tinahely Riding Club grounds, Coolboy where two tickets for the Dublin Horse Show combined training championships were on offer.

There were five starters in the Open competition and here two Shillelagh members jumped clear - Jane Fitzgerald who won, and so qualified for Dublin, with Ballymurphy Hughie (70%) and Lucy Keane who finished second on Ballycreen Kings Mistress (68.25). Keane lost out on the Dublin ticket but qualified for the Festival along with Fitzgerald and two others.

Four combinations qualified for the Festival from the 18-runner Intermediate class where the RDS ticket went the way of Carlow’s Niamh Tobin riding Broomfield Banner (72.5). The organisers were very pleased with the entry for the combined training classes and were delighted to see three of their young members, Mackenzie Rickerby, Ellie Rae and Edward Ryan, qualify for the Under 10s’ combined training at the Festival behind the winner, Bray’s Abbey Cassidy.

In pure dressage, the two team qualifying slots for Barnadown in July went to the winning Carlow Greens trio of Anna Curry (Ballinduff Paddy), Áine Murphy (Metalbridge Rocky) and Rachel Honner (Robe Watermill) who posted a score of 607.5 marks and the Shillelagh trio of the same hue, Sarah Ryan (Ballinguilkey), Lucy Keane (Ballycreen Kings Mistress) and Jane Fitzgerald (Ballymurphy Hughie), who scored 603.

Area 5 is holding its Festival qualifier today at Ballindenisk; the Tubberbride Equestrian Centre is the venue for tomorrow’s Area 6 qualifier; and Area 9 is staging its qualifier on Saturday next, May 24th, at Ballycahane.