FIVE Dressage Ireland-affiliated shows were held between Friday and Sunday last with just one, the Northern Region summer finals, taking place this weekend, today to be precise, at Castle Irvine, Necarne.

Last Friday week, Louise and Sophia Doheny hosted a Midland and Western Region show at their Slieve Bloom Stud, where Category 2 rider Laragh Byrne won four classes, all before List 1 judge, Vida Tansey.

Byrne and Jan Heine’s 10-year-old German riding pony Steendieks Dali Gold recorded the day’s highest score, 72.57%, in the Medium DI77 and 69.69 in the Medium M65; there were three starters in both. At Elementary level, where she rode her mother Sonya McCormack’s 13-year-old bay gelding Matador, Byrne scored 70.36 in the five-runner DI55 and 68.19 in the six-strong DI52.

Maeve Deverell recorded uncontested wins in the FEI pony classes on Louise Doheny’s Belgian Warmblood mare Qarma Van Blommerschot. The Co Offaly international, who won the Eventing Ireland 100 (J) national grassroots championship last month, was awarded a score of 65.29% in the team test by Tansey and 67.30 in the individual test judged by Michael Moore (List 2a).

Earlier, 15-year-old Deverell topped the scores in the nine-runner, Moore-judged Preliminary DI8 on the 11-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding Annaharvey Rozendal (69.62%), a home-bred chesnut by Radolin. Moore also judged the 10 combinations forward in the Preliminary DI5A, where Louise Doheny claimed the overall honours with her 14-year-old Sir Donnerhall mare Slieve Bloom Pearl (71.25).

Cadhla Curran topped the overall leaderboard in two classes judged by Moore, the seven-strong Novice DI27A, where she achieved a score of 68.45% on the seven-year-old German riding pony HS, a chesnut gelding by Valdez HS, and, not too surprisingly, the FEI children on horses individual test on the 12-year-old Hanoverian mare Dancing Espri (67.03), as she was the only starter.