SOURCING volunteers for any one-day event can prove difficult but, at a large venue like the Wilding family’s Rosanna estate in Ashford, there are also road-crossings which need to be manned, a job that many of us would rather avoid.

On Sunday, course designer Luke Drea incorporated the bridge over the River Vartry into his tracks so this too had to be stewarded, a task undertaken by Derek Neilson and Johnny Kyle. They displayed great commitment to the cause throughout the cross-country phase and only quibbled over who was chief bridge steward and who the assistant! Among those who miss the speed and endurance aspect of eventing, Johnny would have appreciated the remark made by one father in relation to the distance between the parking field on Sunday and the new dressage area: “It’s great to get back to proper eventing with roads and tracks,” he quipped, while another suggested that the zip-lines near the secretary’s office should be resited down to the dressage arenas!