AN arrangement, entered into last October, has been paying dividends since then on the hunting field and, last Sunday, bore fruit at the first leg of the Eventing Ireland Western Region’s combined training league at Ralph Conroy’s Milchem Equestrian Centre.

There, Becky Scott won two classes on RDM Ring Of Mercury (EI90) and Athea Clover Dew (EI100), two of the three horses she owns with her partner, Duncan McFadyen. The latter finished second in a division of the EI80 on their most recent purchase, RDM Ring Of Happiness, a traditionally-bred four-year-old Road To Happiness gelding out of a Cruisings Micky Finn mare.

“I was training with Ralph when his main rider, Jason Doerflinger, broke his leg in October,” explained Becky in her native Scottish accent. “Ralph offered myself and Duncan the opportunity to rent one block of stables in one of his yards, while giving him a hand with all the hunters, show jumpers and young horses. It was too good an opportunity to turn down and we moved in with our own three horses and seven liveries. The plan is to produce young horses for sale and we have registered our prefix, RDM.

“We have had a great autumn and winter, hunting our own horses with the Galway Blazers and Ralph’s horses with the East Galways. We were delighted with how the horses performed on Sunday and we look forward to working with Ralph to build on our good results from last year in eventing, show jumping and showing. We were really pleased with our results at Dublin, where Duncan finished fourth in the younger Irish Draught performance class on Monards Dark Hero and I was third in the older Connemara performance hunter class on the stallion Glencroft Go For Gold.”

Unfortunately, Jason is still awaiting clearance to resume competitive riding, but Ralph, Becky and Duncan are getting help at weekends, and on any days he has off from school, from Oisin McDonagh who, too, finished in the placings at Milchem on Sunday.