IRELAND’s Niamh Verkade, who competed in pony competitions for most of the season, didn’t take long to put her elders in their place as she won the non-restricted CCI1*-Intro at last week’s Ballindenisk international horse trials.

The ground jury for this 26-runner class comprised Germany’s Wiebke Henning (C) and Ireland’s Marie Hennessy (E) who had Verkade and Duniro at the top of their Friday leaderboard with the only sub-30 penalty score, 29.3. The addition of 0.8 of a penalty over the coloured poles brought their final tally up to 30.1.