BRITAIN’s Annabel Scrimgeour, a former top eventing and dressage rider turned top level judge and coach, will not only be assessing young horses at next week’s Dublin Horse Show but also those young riders who have qualified for the Pony Club combined training classes and the Junior equitation section.

Combined training qualifiers were held in each of the Irish Pony Club’s nine Areas, where one Intermediate and one Open (Member) rider secured a golden ticket, and at a special combined training fixture in Area 17 of The Pony Club (Northern Ireland) where two riders at both levels qualified.

Erin McCrea (East Down) and Jessica Marks (Mid Antrim) will represent Area 17 in the Intermediate competition on Rubane Candy and Centre Fold Belle respectively, while Emma Burns (East Down) and Tilley Tumilty (Iveagh) will do so at Members (Open) level on R Ballerina and Millbar Phynix.

Kate Walsh, Eventing Ireland’s youth ambassador for 2024, qualified from Area 5 for the Open (1.10m) class with Beechtree Watchful on whom she won the individual pure dressage competition at the recent IPC Festival in Barnadown. She and the 13-year-old gelding by Mirah’s Oyster Bandit have also qualified for the older Connemara performance hunter class at the show.

Since the Festival, Walsh and the very consistent Beechtree Watchful (who are the reigning EI100 (J) national champions) finished second, on their flat work score (29.6 penalties), in the CCI1*-Intro at the Kilguilkey international event.

That 25-runner class was won on CDS Binki (28.3) by leading international rider Cathal Daniels, winner of the Members’ competition at Dublin back in 2014 on Barnaboy Freeman.

Rosie Coad, who finished third in the Intermediate class last August on Ballylee Roller, has qualified for the Open this time around on the five-year-old ISH mare Clarissima (by Clarimo) who is owned by her mother Carol and Cooley Farms’ Richard Sheane.

Junior Equitation

Part of the showing programme at the Dublin Horse Show, but taking place in Simmonscourt, are the two Junior Equitation classes for which 32 combinations in total qualified at four venues throughout Ireland between early May and late June.

Juliette McIntosh, who won the 138cms class and the section championship last August on Drumlin Rocky, has qualified this time around for the 153cms class on Yvonne Murphy’s Minerva van het Groenhof. McIntosh and the five-year-old Belgian Warmblood mare qualified in third at Ard Chuain behind Lilymai Walsh on the seven-year-old ISH gelding Chapel Hill Dark Spark and Glenn Dennehy with the similarly-aged Connemara gelding PLS Blue Steel.

Last August’s reserve champion, and winner of the 153cms class, was Amelia Durkan who had qualified at The Meadows with Busy Bee. This year’s narrow winner of the same qualifier at the McCusker family’s Lurgan Equestrian Centre was Sophie Morrin riding the five-year-old piebald gelding Cappog Lui Surprise. Julia Nelson finished a point behind in second on Henry Caffferty’s home-bred 2019 ISH gelding Jimmys Kroongraaf.