EIGHTEEN young riders appeared before judge Maire Quinlan Pluck in the under-10s’ competition class at the Irish Pony Club’s national dressage day in CoilÓg last Friday.

Among them were three seven-year-olds – Westmeath’s Ella McManus who turns eight next month, Carlow’s Iris Stewart, who will do so in September and Newcastle Lyons’ Faye French, who will be eight in October.

On a mainly sunny day, Faye fared best of the trio when finishing fourth on 67.25% behind Carbery’s dual winner Clara Nyhan (72.75), Laois’ Ben Mahon (69) and her fellow Newcastle Lyons clubmate Millie Dalton (67.75). Her mount was the 21-year-old Derryglass Lad, a bay gelding previously ridden by her cousins, Abbey and Lucy Ferris, both of whom won for Newcastle Lyons on Friday.

According to her father Gary, Faye has recently started cross-country training and is very keen on show jumping, as is her eldest brother Ollie (10).

This year, she hopes to compete in the Glencarraig Lady series, while we weren’t too surprised to learn that one of her early targets is the under-10s’ combined training class at the Area 2 IPC Festival qualifier at CoilÓg on May 19th.

Gary and his wife Eimear are parents of two other boys, Adam (nine) and Sam (five), who can both ride, but have little interest in competing.