THE last weekend in June arose a welcome opportunity to take the weekend off and travel to the beautiful country of the Netherlands to take part in the HH Sheikh Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship Race.

These races are incredible opportunities for lady riders from all over the world to represent their country and show off their skills on an international level.

A lot of work goes on behind the scenes for these races and Susan Leahy who has the job of selecting the riders deserves a lot of credit for the opportunities we get.

Thankfully Susan was able to offer some helpful advice when there were a few anxious moments with my passport taking a little longer than expected for renewal.

Lucky enough, it arrived just in the nick of time, the day before departure. Myself and my new passport headed off to the big city of Amsterdam, where we stayed 20 minutes away in The Hague, in the beautiful Hotel Des Indes.

During my time representing Ireland in the Fegentri series, I was lucky enough to meet so many people and travelling to another country now means meeting up with old friends and meeting new ones and Saturday evening was spent doing just that. After trying out the local food and drink and seeing some of the city’s sights, we retired to the hotel at a sensible hour.

Sunday was race day at Duindigt and with nine declared runners for our race, I was up against girls from Germany, Denmark, France, Spain, Hungary, England and two professional lady riders from Holland and India.

Having recently found a new sponsor thanks to Horseware Ireland, it was great to be able to carry their logo over there for the first time.

I was drawn to ride Badi, a four-year-old Arabian colt who had previous track experience and according to the racetrack had a very good chance.

Extremely colour coordinated with blue cheekpieces, a blue bridle, blue colours and a blue breast girth, I was not to be missed as we headed off down to the start to be loaded into stall number 6.

Badi broke smartly and travelled very well in second position throughout the race.

With a mile to cover, he was full of running approaching the straight, we moved upsides the leader with a furlong to go and went clear to take the lead, winning well at the finish post.

There was a great roar from the crowd and with €30,000 prize money on offer to the winner, both the trainer and owner were ecstatic with the win.

It was my first ever time to visit the Netherlands and my first ever ride on the track in Duindigt so it was overwhelming to make it such a memorable one.

I was not the only Irish person to grace the winner’s enclosure on the day, Tadhg O’Shea was also there and managed to rack up a high profile double on the day.

After winning the Wathba Stud Farm Cup on the Margaret de Ruiter-owned Rodin, Tadhg came up with a second run on Lahoob to finish ahead of European Triple Crown champion Ameretto under Mauro Manueddu and win the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Cup (Group 3), the second leg of the 2015 Triple Crown.

We were wined and dined at the racetrack to the highest level and riding a winner for Ireland on the day was an experience I’ll never forget, the only problem was having to buy an extra bag to bring home the incredibly big trophy.

The added bonus is that of the Ladies Championship Final race in Abu Dhabi on the November 8th which I have now qualified to ride in thanks to my win on Badi.

It will also be my first time to ride in Abu Dhabi representing Ireland so here’s hoping I’ll be able to make it another memorable one.