LAST Thursday week, the South Munster Region of Dressage Ireland staged the first of its 2024 O’Brien’s Saddlery mid-week summer specials. The vast majority of classes at Ballindenisk were open to all, but only registered riders could contest the league qualifiers.

Vida Tansey judged four of those qualifying classes, awarding her highest score (68.38%) to Sue Smallman, who recorded an uncontested victory in the Intermediate I on board her Dutch Warmblood gelding, Gloriant H. Smallman and the Uphill chesnut were also the only combination to appear before the same List 1 judge in the Prix St George, where they scored 64.41.

Tansey’s winner of the three-runner Elementary qualifier (DI56A) was Lene Aksoy riding her Irish Sport Horse gelding Fernhill Nearly Darc (66.61%), an 18-year-old bay son of Shannondale Sarco St Ghyvan, while she awarded her higher score in the match for honours in the Advanced Medium qualifier (BD91) to Marlton’s Barbara Delahoyde on the 11-year-old black mare Marlton Scout.

Seventeen combinations in total appeared in qualifiers before Paula Geiger (List 3), nine of them in the Preliminary DI8, where the highest score was recorded by show organiser and Category 2 rider Ana Hughes on board her 19-year-old bay gelding Captain Flint (69.23%).

Not for the first time this year, young Amber Lane saw off her senior rivals to win the Novice qualifier (DI21) with the 20-year-old Rotherwood Statesman gelding Barkway State Affair (67.59%), while the aforementioned Hughes, here riding Sligo Dark Knight, had to settle for second (62.12) in the two-runner Medium qualifier behind Vitaliy Halstyan and the Pura Raza Espanola gelding Emotivo De Aboin (65.15), an eight-year-old grey by Digital.

Sue Ryan (List 6) judged four qualifying classes, two of which, in the Trailblazers’ section, were won by Amy Hearne and the 13-year-old Welsh gelding Brandon Zimbabwe (by Gigman Orinoco) – the three-runner Under 12s’ Intro A (71.39%) and the Junior Preliminary (71.79), in which there was one other starter.