THERE was only one other starter in the FEI test for four-year-olds at Spruce Lodge last Sunday, but it was here that Anne Marie Dunphy recorded the highest score at this South East Region show.

Riding her Dutch Warmblood mare Pedigree OK, Dunphy was awarded a mark of 75% by Jane Whitaker (List 2), one of four members on the judges’ panel – all female as were those at Ballindenisk on Thursday and Gransha on Saturday, just an observation.

A black daughter of Formidable, the winner is out of Lets Go (by Ferguson). The only starter before Joanne Jarden (List 1) in the five-year-old class was the Oscar O’Connor-partnered Oldenburg gelding Funkstar (67.20%), the Foundation bay owned by the rider and his mother Susan.

There were uncontested wins among the higher graded classes also for Anna O’Connor and Veenstras Grapjas (59.71% in the FEI pony rider team test), for the aforementioned Dunphy and LEB Hugo (65.29 in the FEI Intermediate I), for Elaine Cross Johnson with Devilingh (61.62 in the Prix St George), for Jennifer Rea on Fermoyle Charles (62.34 in the Advanced test) and for Gilly Crawford on Majestic Heartbreaker (65.15 in the Advanced Medium).

Combinations

In the first of the Medium classes, the DI65, six combinations came before Whitaker, whose winner was event rider Heidi Hamilton with Daphne Ladley’s unregistered Irish Sport Horse mare Cavalier Cruiz (68.44%), a seven-year-old daughter of Cruising’s Ambassador. Only half that number started in the Jarden-judged Medium DI77, won by Colette Ward with her eight-year-old Pura Raza Espanola gelding Jazz XI (63.43).

Jarden and Whitaker also judged the Elementary classes between them. Whitaker had the largest number to assess in the seven-runner non-restricted DI52, where her overall leaderboard was topped by US Young Rider Corey Jarman riding Cathal Daniels’s 12-year-old Brandenburg gelding Cesario P (67.22). Ella Rose Maher was the only starter in the Junior class on the 2018 Oldenburg gelding Fabrizio (64.17).

Heidi Hamilton and Cavalier Cruiz won the Medium DI65 at Spruce Lodge \ Louise O'Brien Photography

Five starters

Jarden’s winner of the Junior Elementary DI55 was Lily Larkin with the 11-year-old Oldenburg gelding Don Bronte (66.25%). There were five starters in that class and in the non-restricted section, where Rachel Dowley claimed the honours on her six-year-old Hanoverian gelding GFL Flashdance (64.64).

The List 4 judges Ruth Daunt and Clare Fitzsimmons were a bit more flaithiúlach with the marks at the lower levels.

Daunt’s highest score of 72.14% was achieved by Aimee Bell King with the six-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Nacho in the Preliminary DI5A, while Fitzsimmons awarded her highest score, 73.46, to the Preliminary DI6 winner, Zara Glennon Cully and the unregistered Ballylusk Sky, an 11-year-old Grey Mountain gelding. Celine Salter was a narrow winner of the Fitzsimmons-judged Novice DI21 with Irish Tot (69.14), her seven-year-old Rebel Mountain mare.