FAR from the days of being described as the ‘dreaded’ discipline in eventing, dressage is going from strength to strength among members of the Irish Pony Club at Branch, Area and national level.

“Areas ran dressage training and competitions which benefitted riders’ performances in Area qualifiers and at the Festival itself,” said Kate Harvey, chairperson of the IPC’s dressage and combined training committee.

“I think Branches are realising the importance of dressage as an essential component of eventing and combined training so, if they want to succeed in those disciplines, they need to succeed in the dressage phase.”

Pure dressage is promoted nationally by the IPC through its Dressage Day, which this year took place at Spruce Lodge in May, and through the IPC Festival which was held in late July at Barnadown. From there, the Kildare quartet of Ella Butler (Lenovo), Rachael Doyle (Lyra Oberon), Ruby Hughes (Vogel) and Lucy Maughan (Vally View Sammy) qualified for the JCB Pony Club Championships in Britain where they finished sixth of 22 teams in the Intermediate championship.

The IPC also ran a virtual dressage competition around Halloween, which attracted an entry of 73, while some members also took part in a virtual competition run by the Pony Club International Alliance and Harvey would encourage more to do so next year.

Area 17 of The Pony Club, which covers Northern Ireland, held its Area dressage competition, a qualifier for the British Championships, in late June when it was staged by the East Antrim Branch at Laurel View Equestrian.

Here, the team winners were East Down (Open), Iveagh (Intermediate, Grassroots and PC70), East Antrim (Novice) and North Down (PC walk/trot).

At the higher levels, the individual honours went to the East Down’s Caoimhe Crozier (Open) riding the seven-year-old Masurenfuerst gelding Hill Monach on whom she competes at EI100 (J) level, East Antrim’s Patrick Cunningham (Intermediate) on board the 14-year-old bay gelding Embarcadero and the Mid Antrims’ Hannah Thompson (Novicve) riding the 12-year-old Loughry Lad mare Jemeela Charm on whom she has rarely finished outside the top six in five seasons’ eventing.

Many Pony Club members in both jurisdictions also compete with Dressage Ireland.