THE heavy rain and driving wind, which hit the southern half of the country particularly badly last Sunday, forced the organisers to cancel the cross-country phase of three short-format classes at the Ballindenisk International horse trials, resulting in their abandonment.

“I was gutted,” said event director, Peter Fell. “This is the first time we’ve ever had to abandon a class. True, we’ve cancelled events entirely in the past, but this was definitely a first for us. Saturday was a beautiful day and I wasn’t too worried about the rain which was forecast. To ensure that the top graded horses had the best of the ground, we moved the cross-country phase of the 4*-S (21 final phase starters) to late on Saturday.

“However, it was the wind driving the rain, which forced us to cancel the cross-country on Sunday – conditions were just horrendous. I agree with what others have said about the ground and that it wasn’t as bad as last year (when the phase went ahead with a massive amount of withdrawals) and that the ambulance could get around, but it was the wind, which was far worse than we expected, which beat us.

“I was mindful of riders saying to me last year that they weren’t able to see the fences, but hoped their horses could, so, in agreement with our technical delegate, the vastly-experienced Andy Griffiths, we decided to cancel the phase. In hindsight, it was by far the best decision. While we used the new arena for the warm-up for dressage and for show jumping on Saturday, we had to move the warm-up for the long-format classes on Sunday to the main one, because the wind was grabbing the entry gates from our hands.

“It’s all very well people saying we should have started the cross-country earlier on Saturday when we knew the forecast, but it just wasn’t feasible to do at that stage. Climate change is having an effect on the sport,” Fell added. Frustrated owners were among those querying the late start.

Abandoned

While two of the classes, the CCI3*-S and the CCI2*-S, are stated as being abandoned on the Eventing Ireland website and as interrupted on fei.org, the two organisations differ when it comes to the Michael Leonard championship for five and six-year-old horses. The FEI also has that class down as interrupted, but there is no abandonment notice attached on the EI website, where it has also lost its ‘CCI1*-Intro’ classification.

“We’re calling the result as a combined training competition,” said Fell of the lucratively-endowed, HSI/DAFM-sponsored class. “It’s a very special class and the trophy will be presented to Kirsty Chabert in due course.”

Britain’s Chabert partnered the 2018 Irish Sport Horse mare Global Empress (Matisse de Mariposa – Lady Clover Imp, by Master Imp), who was purchased privately as a four-year-old in Co Cork. The grey’s owner, Carole Somers, didn’t travel over to support the mare, who is now finished for the season and will be targeted at Le Lion d’Angers next year.

For the record, at the time of abandonment, the CCI3*-S was being led by south Co Dublin’s Ian Cassells on Bridget McGing’s home-bred Traditional Irish Horse Inquisitor while Junior rider Ciara O’Connor topped the standings in the CCI2*-S with Cooley Farms’ Dutch Warmblood gelding Cooley Rebound. Inquisitor has been nominated for the CCI3*-L at Le Lion d’Angers.