dressage training ireland

Dunbyrne Dressage Dynamos!

This Spring has seen a hive of activity at Dunbyrne Equestrian livery yard and Dunbyrne Riding Club.

Our liveries and riding club members have been busy taking part in Dressage Ireland and AIRC competitions across all levels.

We love seeing our riders progressing through the levels from their first tests to riding at National Championships. We would like to share a celebrate some of our dressage milestones this year.

Myriam & Beau - from showjumpers to dressage super stars.

Myriam and Beau joined our yard as showjumpers. This is hard to believe now that they are known as our resident dressage unicorns! Myriams transition to dressage is a lovely example of how an ex racehorse can go on to thrive in a new role. From starting dressage last year at riding club this pair have gone from strength to strength through dedication and training. They were second in the Dressage Ireland National Winter finals and have just had a great weekend where they won their Dressage Ireland novice class and just found out that they have won the West Leinster Riding Club regions spring dressage league!

Georgia and Sapphire

Georgia and Sapphire attempted their first dressage test last year for an online competition. Sapphire had never done a test in her life and the goal was to stay in the arena! There were emotions and hard work to finish the test which scored sub 60% but which started them on their way.

Through sheer hard work, practice and systematic training Georgia has trained her pony to be a national champion. At the National Winter finals Georgia and Sapphire won their prelim trailblazer championship and took second in the novice. This is a huge achievement in just a year with much more to come. Most recently Georgia’s sister Grace rode in her first ever show at Dressage Ireland winning her intro class on an incredible 79% talent must run in the family!

Blanaid & Flame

Recently taken to the Dressage sphere Blanaid and Flame had enjoyed competing but struggles with moments of tension and a lack of accuracy affecting scores. Before their last show they under went a series of training sessions with one of our onsite coaches which included coaching on and offsite and competition warm up. They managed a much higher personal best score of over 71% and took third place their highest placing to date.

Lorna & Sammy

It’s hard to believe that Sammy was once a tearaway cob bought from a dealer and unsuitable for several roles! Over the years he has proven himself as a true all rounder. Sammy recently won the elementary and medium leagues at Leinster Dressage and placed in the medium championships at the Dressage Ireland WInter Finals. Yet another example of how horses can successfully change career.

We believe in a basic and consistent routine that horses thrive on.

We believe in systematic training using the FEI scales of training.

We are Dunbyrne Equestrian.

Would you like to join us? We have livery available. http://dunbyrneequestrian.ie/livery

Blazing a trail at Dressage Ireland

We have a number of talented young riders at Dunbyrne Equestrian and recently two of our coaches Ross O'Hare BHSI and Lorna Keogh (BHS/HSI) formed what we now call the Dunbyrne Tailblazers. The tailblazers team allows these riders access to quality competition coaching to encourage them to improve their riding and to compete with a positive mindset.

The first tailblazers sessions focused on dressage with riders learning the dressage arena and letters and how to ride the movements within a test. After three weeks of training the team travelled to JAG in November with the Dunbyrne lorry to compete at Dressage Ireland in the trailblazers competitions for young riders. This day out, the first ever dressage competition for the team was a great success with everyone scoring above 60% and lots of positive and developmental feedback from the judges to work on. Zara Logan, Sive Murphy and Hannah Groves competed in the mini trailblazers while Niamh Davitt, Laura Kavanagh, Blaithnaid Sharpe and Molly Dunne all competed in the junior trailblazers. 

Aoife Harrington, a young rider who has been competing for over a year at Dressage Ireland Trailblazers acted as a guide for the tailblazers team members, riding test demonstrations to help them to learn their tests while her sister Orla a successful competitor at Dressage Ireland and riding club was at JAG on the day to help the riders on their first day out. Aoife travelled to Marlton last weekend to compete at Trailblazers. She scored an impressive 73% in her prelim test to take second place. Aoife also rode her first ever novice test on the day earning third place and a good score with plenty to work on for 2018 to progress at this level. 

As the tailblazers team has evolved at Dunbyrne Equestrian we have started to include showjumping coaching into the schedule. Our team have been learning how to ride lines, jump combinations and count strides. We have a showjumping session planned for Saturday as well as a talk for the team on competing with a healthy, positive and balanced approach to competition.  Our riders will compete on Sunday at dressage and showjumping at our Christmas Show - we cant wait to see them in action