CONDITIONS were dry but very blustery on Sunday at the Clonshire Equestrian Centre, where there was little uptake in higher graded classes offered by the North Munster Region.

However, Kanturk’s Felicity Ward availed of the opportunity to ride the two FEI eventing tests before Dermot Cannon (List 1).

On board James O’Callaghan’s ISH gelding Regal Bounty, with whom she finished 15th of 41 in the CCI5*-L at Luhmuhlen in June last year, Ward scored 64.76% in the 4* Test B and 64.26 in the 5* Test B.

There were uncontested doubles also in front of Cannon for Kate Kerr Horan and her nine-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding Lykkebo’s Don Akino in the Para Grade III tests (68.67% in the FEI Grand Prix A, 67.50 in the FEI Grade B) and for Clodagh Walsh with Rosemary Gaffney’s 15-year-old Hanoverian mare Chantal 2 in the Para Grade I tests (66.25 in the Intermediate A, 67.50 in the Intermediate B).

Amber Lane had to work a lot harder to record her double with her mother Rachel’s Barkway State Affair. In the Preliminary DI5A, Lane and the 24-year-old Rotherwood Statesman gelding saw off 12 rivals when scoring 73.04%, while in the Novice DI27A, they beat four rivals with their score of 69.83. Ann Glynn (List 3) judged both classes.

Glynn also assessed the five starters in the Elementary DI51, where she awarded her highest score (70%) to Leeanne Sheeran-Hayes riding her thoroughbred gelding Taylors Guest.

In the second Elementary class, the BD43 judged by Cannon, Sheeran-Hayes and her 15-year-old Pelder bay scored 64.31, which left them second to Virginie Bibes and her Dutch Warmblood gelding Kontador (64.83), a chesnut nine-year-old by Googel.

Rebecca Hayes just failed to hit the 70% mark in the Glynn-judged Preliminary BD19, when topping the overall leaderboard with Hash Brown (69.38), a 2009 thoroughbred gelding by Vinnie Roe.