CROSSGAR’s Sam Forbes initiated a double at Hazeldene last Sunday, when completing on his winning dressage score in the EI100 with his mother Lynne’s 11-year-old Ars Vivendi gelding RC Charlie (23.8).

This win foiled Casey Webb’s bid for a treble on the day, as she had to settle for second, on her flat phase score, with Our Pollyanna (36.8), and third with Newferry Number One whose total (37.7), on his third start, included 0.4 of a cross-country time penalty. Two of the 14 starters failed to complete.

This was Forbes’s third Eventing Ireland start on RC Charlie, whose career began in September 2018 with David Raeburn before he moved on, in turn, to Alyssa O’Neill and Will Hayes. The bay was bred in Co Tipperary by Michael Ryan out of Josephines Fancy. That Olympic Lux mare, who is a full-sister to Camblin (CSI5*) and a half-sister to the Harlequin du Carel siblings Halltown Harley (CCI5*-L) and Dorada (CSI5*), is dam also of Cooley All Over (CCI3*-L).

The Forbes double came up in the EI90, where four of the 15 starters failed to complete. That quartet included Elaine O’Connor and Kilcoleman Curlew, who led after dressage (25 penalties), had a pole down show jumping and retired following a stop at fence eight (a palisade) on the cross-country course.

Forbes moved up into the vacated top spot with his mother’s DCS Millhouse Platinum (26), an eight-year-old mare with no recorded pedigree. Four cross-country time penalties didn’t prove as costly as they might have done for Holly Wray on R Diva (31.5), while David O’Connor finished third on his dressage score with Tullymurry Masha (32.5).

Forbes works with former para dressage rider Doug Stevenson, who breeds thoroughbreds, breaks yearlings and pre-trains horses at his Crossgar yard. A year ago, Stevenson suggested to Forbes, who had thought of becoming a jockey, that he should try eventing seriously and these results show how far the 22-year-old has progressed, particularly with his flat work. His sister Katie, who competes in ponies, is also coached by Stevenson.

Two members of the Watson family from Dromore made their presence felt in the EI80, where seven of the 20 starters were eliminated on the cross-country course, two for rider fallers and two for omitting a fence.

Charlie Watson, who turns 12 in August, claimed the honours on her winning dressage score (24.5) on board her grandfather Mervyn Gibson’s Connemara mare Leamore Girl. The Tommy Hynes-bred seven-year-old, who was having her third start, is a dun daughter of Classiebawn Hughs Promise out of the Glann’s Owen mare Rockley Princess.

Charlie’s 13-year-old brother Zach, who was making his Eventing Ireland debut, finished third, on his flat work mark (39.3), with their mother Louise’s seven-year-old traditional Irish Sport Horse mare Toberpatrick Gentle Dove who, too, was having her first EI start. Sandwiched between the Watson siblings was Katie McKee, who recorded a double clear inside the time with Darkies Boy (32.3).

While we don’t usually write about the amateur winners in these reports we have to mention that the three-runner EI110 (Amateur) was won by Kim Constable on Urneypark Big Cat. This was a first win at this level, and a first since September 2022, for Kim who is sponsoring generous volunteers’ prizes at each Northern Region event this year.

Competitors at all levels were delighted that this fixture, on a rare Sunday, went ahead with senior riders expressing their appreciation of the Napier family for allowing them on their land. In this weather-affected season, this was just the third event to have been held in the Northern Region and the sixth nationally. There is no event scheduled in the region until Saturday, July 6th at The Clare, which ran for the first time last year.