The sun wasn’t shining, but overall, the weather Gods were on our side on Sunday for the 2025 AIRC West Leinster Region dressage qualifiers. This year’s WLR qualifier was hosted by the members of Cill Dara riding club, at the beautiful Kildare venue, Redhills Stud. Six clubs from within the region
put forward nine teams to battle for the prestige of taking the winning spot and being crowned West Leinster dressage champions for the year, ultimately representing the region at the Connolly’s RED MILLS sponsored National Championships in Mullingar in August. Members from both inside & outside the region were also welcomed to qualify for individual spots. Our judges for the day were Lindsey Ilona Brady & Mairin Cassidy. The team qualifiers are very kindly sponsored by Connolly’s Red Mills and we were very fortunate to secure sponsorship from Lullymore Equestrian, OPTiM Payroll, Sandy Hills Equine Livery & Farmhill Agri supplies for our individual qualifiers and open classes on the day. We were delighted to have Café on Call as our on-site caterers for the day, with their impressive selection of both sweet and savory goodies. The very talented Aisling Deverell was on site all day, providing
riders with a choice of stunning photos to purchase as a memento of their day.
The P1 class was won by Kilcarrick’s Cheryl Keogh on board Hodson Bay Lass under Mairin’s watchful eye. Meanwhile, in the other arena, Lindsey chose Louise Byrne as the winner of the P2 class. Louise is also a Kilcarrick member. She was partnered by Sylvester 2 and scored the highest
mark of the day, an impressive 75.77%. Close behind Louise was Abbeyland’s Elena O’Toole, less than 0.5% ahead of Kilcarrick’s Emily Cunningham in 3rd place. Back to Mairin’s arena where seventeen combinations came forward for the P3 class. Sarah Gayer rode one of her 2 mounts for
the day into top spot with an impressive 73.4%, representing host club Cill Dara on board Lyra Solovey. Abbeylands & Kilcarrick filled the next two spots in the P3 respectively, with Marie-Therese Meade taking 2nd place & Richard Hunter taking 3rd.
The Novice class was the largest class of the day with nineteen combinations coming forward. Judged by Mairin, Kilcarrick claimed both 1st and 2nd spot in this class. Nadine Taylor on board Heigh Ho Silver came out on top, closely followed by Anne Creevey. Catherine Kelly was rewarded for her
long trek with a 3rd place. Catherine represents Burren Riding Club in Clare and was partnered with Baby Shark.
Some impressive scoring in the elementary class, where Lindsey had the top four riders all scoring over 70%. Host club Cill Dara took another top spot here with Julie Polden & her ever-improving Kilnoe Clover scoring 74.04%. Kilcarrick’s Miryam Bunter wasn’t too far behind to take 2nd place,
with Winterdown’s Margaret McCumiskey filling 3rd place.
Just one rider came before Lindsey for the Medium class. Rathangan’s Miia Ruuskanen was another rider to score over 70% with her faithful partner, Happy Gilmore.
With tension building at the end of the day, a crowd gathered to see who would take the West Leinster team title for the year. Called out in reverse order, the team from Rathangan took 3rd place, on a combined score of 209.45. The 2024 winners, Abbeylads, came close to pulling on a double,
but had to settle for 2nd place this time, with a combined score of 209.89. It was one of the three Kilcarrick teams that claimed top spot on a combined score of 212.07. The team was captained by Nadine Taylor, riding alongside Jennifer Haverty, Louise Byrne & Cheryl Keogh.
The updated Qualified Rider & Horse Combinations can be found at this link.
Written by: Sara Wood
Photo Credit: Aisling Deverall
