DAWN O’Brien, a regular competitor at the Clonshire Equestrian Centre in Riding Club activities, made her mark at the Dressage Ireland North Munster Region show there last Sunday, when winning the Preliminary DI6 on Clonlaras Golden Boy.

The day’s largest field of 18 appeared before Elena Satalkina (List 5), who awarded Category 1 rider O’Brien and her eight-year-old dun cob the day’s highest score of 71.73%.

Category 3 competitor Tara Oliver achieved a mark of 70 on board her new ride for this season, the 2017 Danish Warmblood mare Kokkedals Freyja.

Judged

Satalkina also judged the other two Preliminary classes, the eight-runner DI5A, where the overall leaderboard was topped by Nell Fitzgerald and another dun gelding, the nine-year-old Ardcolum Roner (69.64%), and the BD19 where Louise O’Connor achieved the highest score (70.21) with Knockfenora Flash, a six-year-old Irish Draught gelding by Grandpas Diamond, who is currently not registered with DI, but is with Showjumping Ireland.

Marian Slattery (List 3) judged five classes starting with the Novice DI27A, where Rebecca Hayes claimed the honours with her ex-racehorse Hash Brown (70%), a 15-year-old chesnut gelding by Vinnie Roe.

At Elementary level, Slattery’s winners were Lauren McGrath on her Oldenburg gelding Furst Romanoff (66.61%), a 14-year-old Furst Romancier bay, in the four-runner DI55, and Bronte Collins with the Dutch Warmblood gelding N’Idemdito (68.97), a six-year-old son of For Ferrero, in the BD43, in which there was a similar number of starters.

Contested

At Medium level, which was the highest Grade contested on Sunday, there were five runners in the DI65 and four in the BD61, both of which were won by Lucy Cusack who, on board her Dutch Warmblood gelding Kirktown, a nine-year-old bay by Uptown, scored 67.81 and 69.31 respectively.

There was one entry in the Para Grade III class and one in a four-year-old class, but neither met their engagement, while there were no entries in the other six higher graded classes.