A MIXED weekend double for the Williamson family was initiated on Saturday at the Eventing Ireland Northern Region’s final one-day event of the Tyrella season where Carla landed the 16-runner EI110 (J) on Anne Magee and Jane Hancock’s Dutch Warmblood gelding Karolita O.

For good measure, the 16-year-old also finished third on board her mother Janet’s Irish Sport Horse gelding Powers. Two days earlier, Carla and that seven-year-old Colandro bay were beaten by just one point in the Royal International Horse Show open Intermediate working hunter qualifier at the Irish Pony Society Spring Show in Mullingar.

Saturday’s win was the first of the eventing campaign for Carla while her brother Josh’s victory at Fairyhouse on Sunday was a very welcome boost for the 18-year-old Leaving Cert student on his first day back following surgery on a nasty facial injury incurred in a fall at Leopardstown in March.

Josh, who represented Ireland at the 2022 European pony eventing championships in Strzegom, landed the lucrative Tattersalls Ireland George Mernagh Memorial Sales Bumper on the Robert Tyner-trained newcomer I’m Slippery. The Maxios gelding scored by half a length from fellow four-year-old, and fellow debutant, Look At Me who is trained by former international event rider, Stuart Crawford.