WILL McAuley’s judging of the dressage phase of the 18-runner EI100 at Tullymurry last Saturday proved very influential as the top seven riders on the final leaderboard all completed on their flat work scores.

Best among these was Elaine O’Connor who led throughout on Helen Fletcher’s Sir Barnabus (25.5 penalties) to win narrowly from Steven Smith on Ann Bowe’s six-year-old Kings Master gelding The Kings Ransom (26) and Clare Abbott riding Sarah Riley’s similarly aged Sligo Candy Boy mare Caltra Classic (27).

“It was great to win at our home event,” said O’Connor (nee Turley), “but this could easily be our last outing together as the horse is for sale. If he’s not sold then we will head to Loughanmore. I’ve had a wonderful time competing Sir Barnabus and would really miss him if he was sold but now is probably the best time for the owners to do so.”

Sir Barnabus, who won on his affiliated debut in an EI90 at Tullylish on August 1st, 2020 when ridden by David O’Connor, is a 13-year-old bay gelding by Cyrano. He was bred in Co Down by Deane Brown out of the Rne Shore mare Lauren Shore.

It was a similar story in the 16-strong EI90 where the top eight completed on their Angeline Nicholson-awarded dressage marks. Here, however, there was a very clear-cut winner in Queen’s University law student Katie McKee who recorded the only sub-30 penalty score with her seven-year-old skewbald gelding War Paint (23.8).

On just their second EI start, Adam Gibson filled the runner-up slot with the 17-year-old Cougar mare Catwalk II (30) while Beth Hayes placed third on her skewbald mare Largymore Lass (32.5), a 2009 daughter of Sempers Spirit.