ON duty at Spruce Lodge on Saturday, north Dublin’s Michael Moore (List 2a) travelled up to Sunday’s Northern Region show at the Connell Hill Equestrian Centre outside Randalstown where he judged 11 classes.

Moore awarded his highest score of the day in the Novice BD23 to Roma Oakes and her Anglo European Studbook-registered Radar (74.17%), a 13-year-old chesnut gelding by Wolkenderry who was making his Dressage Ireland debut.

Lisa Dundee and Patricia Connon’s home-bred Roundthorn Nice N Easy (71%) a brown Irish Sport Horse mare by Formidable, were the only combination to appear before Moore in the DI National young horse test for five-year-olds. It was a similar story in the corresponding class for four-year-olds where Linda McIlwaine scored 70% on her own Roundthorn Oreo, a Connon-bred ISH gelding by Vittorio.

Others to score 70% on the button were Mark Robinson with Debbie Burns’ Master Caledonia, a 10-year-old black gelding by Metall in the Moore-judged Medium DI67, and Burns herself who topped the scores in the Coreen Abernethy-assessed Preliminary BD19 on her seven-year-old piebald gelding Streamstown Boy who was bringing up a Preliminary double.

Hollie Donnan had a good day in front of Abernethy. The Category 1 rider first won the Novice DI21 on 69.14% on her mother Lisa’s Suzie Seagry, a seven-year-old Oldenburg mare by Tolegro. Then, in the Junior Novice class, she recorded the same score of 70.86 on both Suzie Seagry and on Lisa’s Connemara gelding Killoughter Nugget. With the better collective score, 64.5 to 64, it was the 17-year-old grey by Ashfield Romeo who claimed the honours.

Erin McCrea saw her off sole rival in the Abernethy-judged Junior Preliminary class when scoring 71.25 on the Jackie Harris-bred Rubane Candy, an 11-year-old mare by OB Active.