IT seems almost inconceivable that only three years ago, the sport of eventing was in its infancy at Millstreet. The Duggan family held big dreams and ambitions, but few would have imagined that in such a short time span, the venue would have created both the impact and the reputation that it undoubtedly has.

Since its inception, the Duggan’s beautiful event track at Drishane Castle has hosted European championships at pony, junior and young rider levels, and completing an unbelievably busy month, staged its third full international fixture last weekend. Despite a clash of dates with the Event Riders Master in Blair Castle, entries at the Co Cork venue were up by 20% and counting among them were the cream of the world’s top-ranked riders, including a full visiting squad from America.

As an established event centre, the infrastructure at Millstreet is unparalleled, but of course a cross-country track of this calibre was not built over night.

In line with his ethos to learn from the best in an endeavour to achieve the best, Duggan and his team have spent the past few years developing a world class track, and last weekend, the presentation of the course at Drishane were spectacular.

They had been lucky with the weather, both on the run up and during the competition, and reflecting on the five days, Thomas Duggan commented, “Yes we have to be satisfied, and very much so. It was only our second running of the long format CCI3* so all things considered, it went off very well. Our entries were well up, and it was really nice to see the British sending 30 under 18 riders over to compete in the one-star, which hopefully will be a continual part of their programme in future years.”

When the tracks at Drishane were in the planning stage, Duggan went to huge effort to ensure that he used the most suitable mix of grasses to provide the best possible underfoot conditions. Now, three years on, the turf has bottomed and developed as was hoped, and although a full entry of juniors and young riders had galloped over it four weeks earlier, the going last weekend was spot on. “It was always the worry that the ground wouldn’t heal after the Europeans,” he remarked. “But we had the weather on our side, we had good growth, and worked hard with the machinery.”

THINKING AHEAD

Duggan is never a man to rest on his laurels however, and no sooner had the final prize giving been completed, he was thinking ahead to next season. “We’ll get back to the drawing board now, to see what adjustments need to be made,” he added.

There were the usual clamours from the riders regarding the parkland venue’s obvious scope to upgrade further, and the possibility of applying for four-star status. “The structure of eventing is changing,” Duggan commented. “So we will be watching closely to see how things pan out.”

Not unnaturally, the first couple of years met with a few teething problems, and addressing them head on, most have been resolved. The rejig of the timetable works well, although as many riders had departed on the completion of the short format classes on Saturday night, the place felt a little quiet for the feature CCI show jumping finals on Sunday. A possible rethink might come into play here, and also for the popular young event horse Discovery class, which ran late into the night on Saturday, and drew to a conclusion in front of modest crowd the following day.

Of course the pluses far outweighed these reflections. The new surface on the main outdoor sand arena was simply superb, as were Mike Etherington Smith’s well received cross-country courses.

Speaking to The Irish Field on Saturday evening, and looking back over the weekend, Etherington-Smith remarked: “The boys here have done a fantastic job – it was a great team effort, and full credit to them. We had a very quality entry which has grown in line with the event’s reputation and is well deserved. I was very pleased with how the courses rode, and it was great to get the positive feedback from the riders, as you want the horses to benefit from the experience.

“From the horses’ perspective, the mental part is often underestimated, and I like the horses to grow and gain confidence. The parkland terrain here is wonderful – horses can get in a rhythm and see where they are going, which makes them feel a million dollars.”