Rachel Dowley

THE SEMI-finals and finals of the 2015 Silver Spurs were held at Joan Keogh’s beautiful Spruce Lodge venue in Co Wicklow, where Tara Hayes added another title to her season tally, when she was crowned pony Silver Spurs champion with Bantiss Holy Joe.

With two winter titles and a Hickstead masters championship already under her belt, Hayes scored three perfect tens in the semi-final on her way to victory, despite the efforts of both Victoria Campbell and Kate Lenihan, who finished second and third respectively.

Hayes is a member of both the Leinster youth development squad and the HSI pony dressage development squad, and through these schemes she has benefited from training with Sandra Blake Farrell and Anne Marie Dunphy and will shortly travel to the UK to represent Ireland at the BYRDS Home International.

At the prize-giving, Hayes acknowledged the fairytale year she has been enjoying and noted that it was particularly special to win the pony class in her first year out of the under 12 grade. “I am so grateful both to Horse Sport Ireland for the very generous training bursary and to Tredstep Ireland for the wonderful competition clothing. I think the Silver Spurs is a great competition for any young rider who wants to improve and develop their riding skills,” she said.

Following in the footsteps of his older sister Leah, Killian Murphy topped the leader board in the under 12 section to bring another bursary home to Cullintra Stud. The only rider in the class to achieve a score above 90, he finished ahead of Bronte Collins in second. Pony Club member Ellen Creed won the third bursary with Miss Delilah.

Sandra Blake Farrell’s students also came to the fore in both the junior and under 25 sections, which were won by Kevin Acres and Shannon Cussen respectively. Another to have benefited from training through the Leinster youth development squad, Acres joined Hayes in achieving a perfect 100% in the semi-finals. He remained almost two marks ahead of the Steven Smyth-trained Lynn Clarke-Hearty in the final, while Roisin Winters was third on board Rhos Royal Velvet.

Speaking afterwards, Acres was full of praise for his coach and said that his bursary will be put to good use in preparing for the national championships. “With the bonus of being kitted out for Cavan by Tredstep, we’ll be good to go!” he added.

“I’m pretty shell-shocked!” was Shannon Cussen’s reaction when she found out she had become under 25 Silver Spurs Champion. Riding Varthago Van’t Kiezelhof, she edged ahead of Linda Murphy and the former eventer Annestown Emperor. Having been victorious in the earlier semi-final, the Eimear White-trained Heather Murray-Good and Marlfield Fallon had to settle for eventual third.

Cussen noted that ‘LB’ has only competed at prelim level, so to perform so well in elementary tests was an unexpected bonus. “Our progress together as a team has escalated so quickly thanks to the training with Sandra provided by Leinster Dressage. I now hope to take him to the Nationals, and then who knows what next year will bring,” she said.

The open under 25 section provided a perfect prep run for two of Horse Sport Ireland’s pony dressage team riders ahead of their trip to Malmö for the European Championships next week. Sofie Walsh and Horseleap Bruno, who have represented Ireland at CDIPs in both Addington and Compiegne earlier this year, topped the leader board in the semi-final, however Courtney Stuart relegated them to second place in the final after her ride on her small tour partner Fanfarron.

Taking third in both the semi-final and the final was another pony team member, Katie Burns, who was also delighted with how Caracas II performed ahead of Malmo.

Pony squad coach Anne Marie Dunphy commented afterwards: “It was great to see both development squad and high performance squad riders proving their ability in this competition. Katie and Sofie produced very consistent and polished performances, which is a good confidence boost ahead of the Europeans.”

Bursaries were once again awarded to the top three finalists in each section thanks to generous sponsorship from Horse Sport Ireland, with Tredstep Ireland providing much appreciated prizes for all finalists.