THE final of the inaugural Equipeople Association of Irish Riding Clubs’ regional table quiz took place last Saturday night in the Annebrook House Hotel, Mullingar where, in the end, 14 teams sat down to do battle.

Sponsor of the AIRC National eventing championships, Equipeople first approached the AIRC roughly nine months ago to discuss sponsoring a non-riding competition where volunteers, perhaps those who no longer ride or never rode to competition level, could take on their peers.

“There would be no competitions without volunteers who fill many roles and I wanted to sponsor something that they could enjoy on an equal footing,” said Equipeople’s Managing Director, Caroline Lane. “There had to be at least one volunteer per team and, at each of the qualifiers I attended (she missed just one), I made a point of thanking them for all their assistance during the season.

Quiz

“Many, many years ago, there used to be a big Riding Club quiz held each year in the Ambassador Hotel in Kill and they were very enjoyable. I have agreed to sponsor the quiz again but that may be in two years’ time as it was a lot of extra work for Elaine (Dunne, the AIRC’s General Manager), so we’ll just have to wait and see.”

While the scores were quite close between the teams who finished third to fifth (Mosstown 169, Winterdown 164.5 and Rathangan 161.5) on Saturday night, two quartets drew clear of the remainder to battle it out for the title of champion.

Having won the high-scoring 30 seconds round, the Greenhills team of Deirdre Kane (secretary), Grainne Alexander (chair), Roland Dalton and Ger O’Shea amassed 192.5 points to claim the win ahead of Lakelands’ Emma Reynolds (secretary), Anna Reynolds (treasurer), Michelle Flynn McEvoy and Charlotte Martindale who had to settle for second on 187.