IT seemed a strange move to hold the 2025 Eventing Ireland national championships at an entirely new venue but Maurice and Felicity Cousins’s Barnadown Equestrian proved the ideal location last weekend following the effects of Storm Amy.

There was plenty of hardcore for parking, the dressage and show jumping phases were staged on all-weather surfaces while the cross-country track was on free-draining land which, ironically, would have required watering had the rain not come.