SUE Smallman’s sole success at last weekend’s Dressage Ireland national championships at Ballindenisk came in the combined Prix St George and Intermediate I freestyle which attracted a competitive field of six.

Before British Dressage List 1 judges Gwyneth Lewis and Fiona Lace, Smallman narrowly claimed the title when scoring 70.25% on her Dutch Warmblood gelding Gloriant H, a 13-year-old chesnut son of Uphill. Belinda Brereton finished second on her similarly aged and hued Galaxy Moone (70.005%), another KWPN-registered gelding.

Angela Lyons won two of the freestyle championships on her Hanoverian gelding Woodcroft Santa Cruz. In the four-runner Medium, which was judged by Lewis and Marie Hennessy (DI List 2), Lyons and her 16-year-old Sandro Hit bay scored 68.665% while Lewis and Lace awarded the combination a score of 60.085 in the Advanced Medium where they were the only starters.

Joanne Logue was rewarded for her trip down to Ballindenisk with two championship victories on her Irish Sport Horse mare Little Lottie, a Cormint bay who was bred in Co Monaghan by William Windrum out of Diamond Chin Jenkins (by Diamond Chin). Logue and the six-year-old first claimed the Category 2 Preliminary title on 192.25% and followed that up with victory in the Novice freestyle championship on 68.055.

Another rider who headed home with two titles to her credit was Siofra Pratt who, on a score of 218.25%, first won the Category 2 Elementary championship on board her traditionally-bred ISH mare Ballarin My Grace. She then partnered the chesnut to record a comfortable success (71.535) in the Elementary freestyle. The winning 11-year-old daughter of Kings Master was bred in Co Clare by John Ryan out of the Nash Me mare Seefin Rosewood.