THE first of four qualifiers for this year’s Connemara performance hunter championships and the Irish Draught performance championship at the Dublin Horse Show was held last Saturday at Scarteen, three days after the Ryan family had hosted the first of the young event horse qualifiers.

Their long hours as dressage judges on Wednesday didn’t deter Una O’Donnell and Naomi O’Donoghue from agreeing to assess the flat work phases on Saturday (they also judged at the event in Clyda on Sunday), while Marian Slattery also responded favourably to Sue Ryan’s request to judge the jumping phase.