A LARGE number of Irish Pony Club members were in action at the recent Dressage Ireland national championships in Mullingar including Abbey Ferris who won the Novice Junior Category 1 championship on How Ya Sammy.

This has been an excellent year for 13-year-old Ferris, an active member of the Newcastle Lyons Branch, and her mother Mary’s seven-year-old bay Connemara gelding by Woodfield Sammy who the family purchased last November.

Champions

In dressage, they also won the Junior championship at the IPC’s national dressage day in mid-August at Spruce Lodge, where they had nearly eight percentage points in hand over their nearest rivals, and, prior to that, the Preliminary Category 1 championship at the Botanica Leinster Region Dressage Summer Festival in CoilÓg.

Ferris and How Ya Sammy also enjoyed a great season under Eventing Ireland rules. They had five outings at EI80 level, winning twice, including at the inaugural running of Eventing Ireland’s Grassroots Championships at Lisgarvan House where they claimed the EI80 (Pony) title. They also finished second once and rounded off their season by placing third, on their dressage score, in the EI80 national championship at Kilguilkey House.

Trailblazers

Duhallow member Amber Lane and the Goor family’s British-bred bay Barkway State Affair have enjoyed numerous successes on the showing scene this year and also under Dressage Ireland rules. At Mullingar, Lane and the 19-year-old Rotherwood Statesman gelding won two TRI Equestrian Junior Trailblazer championships, the Preliminary and Novice.

Clara Nyhan, who is an active member of the Carbery Branch, claimed the Mini Trailblazers championship on board the 15-year-old piebald mare Molly Dot Com before Caoimhe O’Donnell landed the Under 12s’ title with Claire Hawkes’s 12-year-old bay mare, Greylands Razzle Dazzle.