LAST week, a 14-strong squad of Dressage Ireland riders (three with two horses apiece) travelled over to England, where they competed in the British Dressage senior home nations’ competition at Addington Equestrian in Buckinghamshire.

This was the first time since 2016 that Dressage Ireland had been represented at the fixture, which attracted competitors from all over Britain, including the powerful South and East Region, who ran out winners of the 40-strong team competition.

Dressage Ireland fielded two teams of just three riders and three full four-rider squads, although one of those featured a ‘borrowed’ British competitor in Louise Clark.

While none of the Irish teams featured in the placings, there were top five individual finishes, on their combined scores over Saturday and Sunday, for Ana Hughes and Caroline Lynch.

Hughes finished fourth at Novice level with her 11-year-old bay gelding Ballycahane Billy, who is one of three horses she has entered at the DI national championships in Ballindenisk this weekend.

Lynch was fifth out of 38 in the Preliminary division with her Irish Sport Horse gelding DS Bouncer 007, the five-year-old Moylough Bouncer grey on whom she finished third of 19 in the Evening Ireland EI90 Grassroots championship at the Fell family’s Co Cork venue in July.

Lorna O’Hare, one of the driving forces behind DI’s return to this nations’ cup competition, was Team Ireland’s winner of the newly-introduced Equimotional Award for Kindness Amongst Horseriders.

Sponsored by Equimotional Performance Coaching, the award recognises those riders who “demonstrate exceptional kindness, empathy and emotional intelligence within the equestrian community”.

An award was presented to one rider in each region that competed.

“It was a brilliant trip,” said O’Hare, “and everyone who went on it said they would love to go again. Mark Ruddock (chair of DI and a BD List 1 judge) really pushed for this and it was in January that DI asked for expressions of interest from riders.

“We each had to achieve qualifying scores, in a 12-month period up to July, and attend training days before the teams were announced in August.

“The horses and riders arrived at Addington on Wednesday with Mark and Fiona Hayes, our team coaches, arriving on Thursday,” continued O’Hare, who competed at Elementary level with DBS Oisinn and at Medium level with DBS Second Chance.

“There was a brilliant atmosphere and we had a fun opening ceremony with an Olympics theme, which added to the occasion.

“However, things got very serious on competition days, when there were three judges at each arena for both team tests and some very strong opposition.”

In addition to thanking Ruddock (who doubled up as chef d’equipe) and Hayes for their support all weekend as the 14 Dressage Ireland riders took on 141 British Dressage counterparts, the squad expressed their gratitude to Zebra Products and Connolly’s Red Mills for their generous sponsorship of some team ‘extras’ and to the Gordon Group, who sponsored the squad’s kit.