IT was encouraging, yet also worrying, to see that the annual two-phase event at Tyrella, run by the Northern Region of Eventing Ireland, had sold out in record time before its scheduled date of Saturday, March 8th.

Entries opened on January 1st and, four days later, the ‘House Full’ sign went up with regional secretary, Dora Beacom, adding that she had started a waitlist. The following day it was announced that, thanks to the agreement of landowners John and Hannah Corbett, the NR would run a second two-phase event at the same venue on Sunday, March 9th which, at time of writing, still had a few places available.

The season proper in the region commences, as usual, at Tyrella on Saturday, March 22nd and it will be interesting to see how long that one-day event takes to fill when the entries open on Monday, March 3rd; one imagines that there will be a lot of fingers hovering over keyboards. No classes have been advertised for any EI fixtures as yet, but we do know that the NR will be running two EI120 classes in 2025, the first at Tyrella 2 on April 5th and one at Loughanmore on August 2nd.