THE garden party at Hillsborough may well have been the focal point of Princess Anne’s one-day visit to Northern Ireland this week but we noted that she also spent some time on Tuesday at Michelle and John Kane’s Irish Equine Rehabilitation and Fitness Centre outside Lisburn.

Among those the Princess Royal met at the facility were senior therapist Karen Ferris, the former qualified rider, and therapist Justyna Dranka. She was also introduced to show horse rider Chloe Thompson who is due to start working at the Centre in the next couple of weeks.

Helicopter

While locals were only alerted to the visit when the helicopter landed, the Kanes knew about it weeks in advance and had invited in some of their clients, who consistently use the facilities, such as senior show jumpers Joanne Sloan Allen and Sameh El Dahan, international pony show jumper Robert Russell, who is sponsored by the Centre and left on Tuesday to compete in the European children on horses championships in Spain, and Ryan Hopper who had spent the previous weekend at Aachen with Joseph Murphy’s Calmaro.

Also invited to meet the Princess Royal were Robbie and Barbara Fallon of the Cashelbay Connemara Pony Stud who brought one of their stallions along with them from Co Galway.