Hazel is kindly organising a series of flatwork lessons with Mary Finneran at Glenleary, kicking off this Friday evening and continuing for three weeks. It’s a great opportunity to tweak riding techniques and sharpen up for the coming series of dressage competitions.
Contact Hazel on 087 746 6431 if you’d like to participate.
Pictured below: Denis working hard at a lesson at Glenleary in 2012.
Great news on the dressage front: Donegal will host one of two dressage qualifiers in the western region this year. Our qualifier will take place at the beach Show on Sunday 1 June.
Our Donegal Gaeltacht hosts will operate a pre-entry system for ‘Teams’ with allocated times in the dressage. Entries close on Wednesday 28 May and the entry fee is €40.00 per team.
Sadly for Letterkenny, several of our key dressage enthusiasts are unable to make the show this year. Hopefully we’ll be able to field a competitive team nevertheless. Anyone who would like to compete on a team (and is willing to commit to going to the Championships in Mullingar in the event that we qualify!) should contact Vera without further delay. Full details of the dressage championships can be found on the AIRC or Gaeltacht’s website.
Pictured below: Nadine and Millie (aka Nellie) at the Beach Show, 2013.
Time is ticking inexorably towards high summer and there’s no surer sign of it than the sight of the Beach Show on the calendar, less than two weeks away. The schedule is a familiar one (again without showing this year) and if God plays along on the weather front, it’s a guaranteed great day out. Start time is later than usual this year as the schedule works around the tides.
It is very likely that a regional team dressage qualifier will be integrated into the dressage competition — details will be confirmed shortly.
Pictured below: Happy club members at the beach show in 2013.
This year’s regional training day has been organised with accustomed proficiency by the McCrossan sisters and takes place at Dirraw Farm near Ballymoney on Sunday 27 July. It offers an unbeatable line-up of instructors with Charles Maudlin, Gary Marshall and Mandy King booked for the day. Participants may take two lessons in total in one or two of the three normal disciplines — dressage, show jumping and cross country. The cost for the day will be €30 and full details will follow in due course.
A big thank you to Vera and Finbar for documenting the activity at last weekend’s Inishowen show at Lenamore. See their collection in the Gallery.
Pictured below: The second-most important scene at any show — happy spectators and supporters.
Leo on Cool and Ann on Armstrong will be joined by Cormac on Sante Fe and Damien on Millie as the club tries once again to qualify for that elusive place at the RDS in August. The qualifier takes place on Sunday 25 May at Kerins’s in Collooney. It’s a really great day’s sport for spectators as well as competitors and we hope there’ll be lots of support for the team on the day.
The next meeting of the Donegal clubs takes place on Tuesday this week at Tir na nOg. Topics to cover include the regional dressage qualifier, training day and other summer events.
Everybody is welcome to attend. If you can’t attend but would like an issue addressed, contact Cormac or Libby in advance of the meeting.
With weather a great deal better than forecast the odds were already good that Inishowen Riding Club’s show at Lenamore would prove successful. The event was well supported by Letterkenny members and they departed with their fair share of ribbons.
Particularly in dressage, our riders did us proud. Vera took AP honours and Nadine and Cormac dominated the Advance Intermediate division, while Hazel and Louise placed at primary level. These two novice riders also flew the flag with honour in the jumping arena with Hazel finishing in the top spot and Louise taking the green ribbon.
Reports tell that Francis and Zak had an enjoyable day although they had a pole or two down, while Leo took third in a great jump-off for the Intermediate competition. That class was taken by newly-returned Erica on Britney, now of course riding for Inishowen. There’s no final report of the higher level classes in yet but doubtless Nadine, Damien and Cormac represented us with their usual standard of performance.
Thanks to everybody in the Inishowen club for providing such a good day’s sport. Well done to everybody who competed or who turned up on the day to support our riders.
Inishowen Riding Club’s show this Sunday at Lenamore offeres both dressage and show jumping classes. In a change from the original plan, dressage entries will now be taken on the day. However you must ride your test by 3pm at latest.
Do your best to get out and support the show. It kicks off the summer competitive season and we have a nice run of events ahead of us. Following Sunday’s show we have the RDS team qualifier at the end of May, the much-loved Beach Show on Sunday 1 June, and our own flagship Derby & Dressage Show at Hillsborough Farm on Sunday 15 June.
One of the great things about our club is the diversity of civilian lives that our members lead. As life ebbs and flows, so too does everybody’s time for the club. You’ll all have noticed that the website has been suffering from a serious case of neglect over the past good number of weeks — your website editor has been under severe pressure on both sides of her work life. But in case you feel that she’s been frittering her time away on frivolous activities, rest assured that you too can benefit from her non-equestrian endeavours.
You might enjoy the 5 x 5 = €20 this Saturday evening in The Taproom at Rathmullan House, or if that doesn’t take your fancy, consider the fresh-off-the-press Earagail Arts Festival programme and plan some summer cultural activities. Normal website service should resume shortly…
Letterkenny Riding Club