LAST Sunday morning, Killian Gaffney featured in the Making It Work pages of the Business Post as chief executive of EquiTrace, title sponsor of the weekend’s Wild Atlantic Dressage Festival at the Ard Chuain Equestrian Centre.

By day’s end, Dublin-born Gaffney, who spent his childhood weekends and holidays in Galway, featured as winner of the Drumindoo Stud Category 2 Novice championship at the Festival on his Irish Sport Horse gelding Gleneden Justified (139.48%) who was having his second start at this level.

A Dignified van’t Zorgvliet five-year-old who started competing under Dressage Ireland Rules in March 2022 and now has 87 points, the bay was bred in Co Wicklow by Jim O’Connell out of the Womanizer mare Wonder Woman.

The other Novice titles went to Yasmin Hughes on the 16-year-old skewbald gelding Lightning McQueen (Midlands and Western Region Category 1) and David Freeney riding Stephen Byrnes’s Dutch Warmblood gelding CLS Illusion (Lawrence Engineering Category 3). The latter combination also recorded the highest two-day score at Preliminary level in the Easy Foot Farrier Category 3 championship (152.67).

Cassandra Morris claimed the honours in the Iceford Stables Category 2 championship on her Dutch Warmblood gelding Lots Of Joy while the Dressage Ireland Category 1 championship went to Niamh Macken on board her Irish Draught gelding Diamond King Henry. Lilly Berry McLaughlin topped the scores in the Junior Category on the Connemara gelding General Sinatra.

Competing herself over the weekend, Sinead McGrath Dressage sponsored the Category 2 Elementary championship won by Tracy Murphy on her eight-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Kennedy (134.51%). Another title went the way of David Freeney as he won the Annaghmore Farm-sponsored Category 3 championship with CLS Icon.