CONTINUING the trend of recent years, young riders came to the fore at this year’s championships.

Already a holder of too many titles to count, Tara Hayes was in a class of her own at prelim category two, finishing first and second with Harley and Thorneyside Kestral respectively.

Fellow HSI high performance squad member Robyn O’Neill scored a personal best of 68.902% in Saturday’s individual test on her way to claiming the Pony FEI Championship with Belsasser. O’Neill was also successful at elementary category two, where she finished second on her younger pony Diamond Anfrody. Junior rider Sofie Walshe was almost 3% ahead of O’Neill in this class, claiming her second title of the championships.

Riding her Junior European Eventing Championship partner Kinsau, she began by taking the equivalent novice championship and went on to conclude a stellar weekend with second place in the new novice freestyle class.

It was Walshe’s former pony teammate Alana Cazabon who enjoyed a perfect strike rate however, winning across the board at advanced medium.

Judges Paula Nysten and Dermot Cannon awarded her a score of 68.684% in Friday’s test at this level, leaving her over 3% ahead of her closest competitors. Eventual reserve champion Bethany Mackey did manage to narrow the gap on Saturday, but her effort was not enough to catch Cazabon and David Patrick’s bay gelding Zazou.

Riding to a compilation which fittingly included Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl, the Connemara native then scored 71.417% to take Sunday’s freestyle championship.

“I’ve really enjoyed being at home in Ireland for these championships,” said Cazabon, who has spent the last eight months based at Stal Hexagon in Holland.

“I’ve finally been able to spend some time with my incredibly supportive boyfriend and family, and Zazou and I are going to enjoy some downtime in Cleggan before we begin our next adventure.”

After an incredible season on the continent, which has included nine CDIJs, an international win at Biarritz and a European Championship appearance, Cazabon’s next adventure involves making the transition to young rider level with Zazou as well as debuting a new ride.

She intends to base herself in Britain with Mark and Elizabeth Mills at The Dressage Company. “As nice as it is to be home, I can’t wait to get back into training and see what next year has in store for us.”