Show Report
Spruce Lodge 19/07/2009
A last minute change of date due to a clash with a regional pony club dressage qualifier saw South East region return to the popular venue of Spruce Lodge for the second show of the summer season on Sunday 19th of July, a large entry saw the region host its biggest show to date with all levels of dressage being catered for from Intro to Grand Prix.
Melanie Hammel was victorious in the Intro class and also took the victory in the unregistered section of the Young Horse class, Michael McNally and Tim were clear winners of the registered section of the young horse class with a 5% advantage over his nearest rival, they continued their successful day with another large margin victory in preliminary 19 over nearest rivals Adrienne Hickey and Strattonstown Star, Eithne O'Kelly took the unregistered section of this class.
In preliminary class 15 the victory went the way of Caroline O'Leary and Bunowen King ahead of Junior rider April Allen and Tzira Hill. Novice class BD 35 resulted in some very impressive scores being recorded with the first three competitors all scoring over 74%, victory went to Margaret Coonan and the impressive German bred mare Helena scoring 77.3% ahead of Ulla Seidel in second and Gerald Bloomer in third.
BD 37 was won by Gerald Bloomer and My Celtic Imposter ahead of Sarah Glynn in second and Margaret Coonan in third, the same combination continued their winning ways in Elementary 48 posting a win over Maurice Keenan and Keenbar Crosstown Woody. The other elementary class went to Michael O'Toole and Rudimentary ahead of Avril O'Byrne and Parker Blue.
A small number of riders contested the medium classes with victory in BD 69 going to Ruth Chadwick and the impressive stallion Ladino XV and BD 73 going to Amanda Goldsbury and Awakino Rockford.
Anne Marie Dunphy took the Advanced Medium with Urbanus and continued to take the Advanced class with the same gelding. Rolf Seidel finished second to Anne Marie Dunphy in BD 94 and was unopposed in taking BD 98 with a score of 66.3%.
The Grand Prix class was a tight run affair with judge Gisela Holstein only able to separate the competitors by one mark, victory went to Sue Smallman and Oakengrove Ideal who scored 64.89% ahead of Sarah Mellor and Fahrenheit who scored 64.68%.
A welcome addition to the programme was the freestyle classes, Fiona Dunne and Kelly Clover took the preliminary freestyle, while three competitors took up the challenge at elementary level, and here Philippa Teggin was the clear winner scoring 71.67% to take victory over Collette Ward Davey in 2nd and Patricia Ryan in 3rd.
An extra class was also added to the programme to facilitate Junior riders preparing for the silver spurs and here April Allen and Tzira Hill emerged victorious ahead of Joyce Reilly and Mo Bhua Rua.
A very enjoyable day was had by all, the region would like to thank everybody who volunteered to help, our judges on the day Máirín Cassidy, Jacqui Doherty and Gisela Holstein and Joan Keogh for the marvellous facility that is Spruce Lodge.
We would like to encourage all regional members to attend our finals when we return to Spruce Lodge on September 12th and also to remind everyone that these shows cannot go ahead without personnel to run them, please volunteer to help us run our shows, our region is growing and if we don't have enough help we will be unable to run any shows.