SINCE the Wilding family’s Rosanna estate first made its appearance on the Eventing Ireland calendar in late June 2015, one of its staunchest supporters has been Olympic rider Sarah Ennis who missed just one of the 10 renewals.

Last Sunday, ahead of a very busy week at Millstreet, Ennis competed just three Irish Sport Horses at the Co Wicklow venue but made these rides count when winning and finishing second in the Cooley Sport Horses EI110 on Heritage Stellor Laccato and Silken Icon respectively and filling the runner-up position in the Trinity Motors EI100 with Stellor Deelite.

In the EI110, 12 combinations came before Damien McCormack who had Wendy Harris’s six-year-old Colandro gelding Silken Icon in the lead on 24 penalties, just ahead of his stable companion Heritage Stellor Laccato (26) and both recorded double clears and completed on the same total of 42. However, while Tracey McKeown’s 2016 Latour gelding Heritage Stellor Laccato was a second over the time show jumping, he was the faster of the pair across the country and so claimed class honours.

The pair are two of three horses Ennis is competing in the CCIYH2*-S at Millstreet this weekend, the other being another six-year-old, Diamond Fusion.

Joint first on 26.5 after dressage in the four-strong Cooley Sport Horses EI110 (Open), Stephanie Stammschroer dropped back to second on Brownstown Remi with a pole down show jumping. However, with the leader, India Rogers being eliminated early on the cross-country course with Hollybrook Star, a steady clear gave Stammschroer and her mother Paula’s 10-year-old Remington Clover gelding their first success of the season on their fifth start.

Dropping down a level, Ennis completed on her Brona O’Mahony-awarded flatwork mark with Stellor Deelite in the 19-runner Trinity Motors EI100 but that was only good enough for second as, despite 1.6 cross-country time penalties, Bethany Burton led throughout on Must Be Cooley who won on 27.4.

Owned by the locally based Cooley Farm, who sponsored all five EI110 classes on Sunday, Must Be Cooley, who was having his fourth start, is a six-year-old gelding by Livello. He was bred in Co Kildare by Catherine Doyle out of the Ramiro B mare Kilmarnock.

On her second ride of the season, former flat apprentice Amy Parsons recorded a runaway victory in the 27-strong Mercedes-Benz EI90 on Polly Stephens’s newcomer Wellfields Casino Royale who completed on his impressive winning dressage score of 17.3. Leah Knight finished second with Fiona McKenna’s home-bred eight-year-old Gwennic de Goariva mare Little Lexi Lady (22.5) who was also making her EI debut.

The winner, a British-bred son of Casiro I, is out of the Hanoverian mare Double Take (by Detroit).