NEXT weekend, Dressage Ireland members will be converging on the Ard Chuain Equestrian Centre near Corballa, Co Sligo, for the 2024 Wild Atlantic Dressage Festival.

Over 200 entries have been received for classes ranging from the young horse division to those competing at Grand Prix level. Two British judges, Mary Ann Horn and Kristy Mepham will be joined by Vida Tansey, Dermot Cannon and Danielle Carey in assessing those forward.

There is a total of 20 sponsors, some of whom have supported the WADF since it was started in 2019, while others are on board for the first time this year. The Festival organisers actively promote these supporters through social media.

A long list of volunteers, who are extremely generous with their time, make the weekend possible and hopefully they, competitors and officials can enjoy the social aspect to the Festival on Saturday evening, when the North West Hospice will be the beneficiary of the fundraising raffle.

In other matters, while it was disappointing that the 2024 Dressage Ireland national winter finals were abandoned, the Board of DI announced late last week that those who had qualified can take one of their 64% qualifying scores forward as one of the three required for the National Championships in September.

As DI continues to refund entries in full for the weather-affected winter finals, which were due to take place over the weekend of April 6th and 7th, the losses incurred by the organisation were reduced substantially by Mullingar Equestrian Centre waiving their fee for hire of the Co Westmeath venue.