DURING a record-breaking week for Ireland’s senior dressage riders at the European championships in The Netherlands, the country’s top young exponents of the discipline, and other forms of equestrianism, were competing in the semi-finals and finals of the annual Silver Spurs scheme.

Significantly, there was a direct connection between what was happening in the village of Kralingse, on the outskirts of Rotterdam last week and in the National Horse Sport Arena in north Dublin as three of the Irish team – Heike Holstein, Judy Reynolds and Kate Dwyer – were previous Silver Spurs finalists.