NAMED recently as non-travelling reserves for the Irish team at the European Junior eventing championships, Co Wicklow’s Sarah Keane and Lon Mac Líomhtha displayed their wellbeing when winning Section B of the older Connemara performance championship qualifier at Tullylish last Saturday.

While four other combinations were also clear over the Adam Stephenson-designed track, Keane and her mother Avril Hobson’s 13-year-old Silver Shadow gelding had the competition sewn-up in the flatwork phase as their score was 10 points higher than any of their rivals.

The grey, who was home-bred by Hobson out of her Grange Merlin Surf mare Ocean Bealtaine, completed on 256 ahead of the 2019 Carraig Eichir gelding Mister Ed (244) who was ridden for Edward Kelly by his son Matthew. This latter combination, who were third recently in the CCI2*-S at Ballindenisk, qualified for Dublin but Kate Horgan and Kinamara Laura, who completed on the same score, failed to do so.

Runaway win

Jasper Kelly and Tanya Lock’s Rathcline Moonlight Girl recorded a runaway success in Section A where they completed on 250 points, ahead of Ella Morris who also qualified in second riding Niamh Flynn’s 12-year-old Oisin Aerach gelding Baunmore (225). A nine-year-old dun mare by Moonlight Silver Shadow out of Maureen Kearns’s Coriander (by Coosheen Thyme), Rathcline Moonlight Girl was back in action on Sunday when she finished fourth in the EI100 (J) at Frankfort Stud.

The result couldn’t have been closer in Section B of the five to seven-year-old qualifier as the two tickets went to the dead-heaters Newgrange Brady and Paddy Jo. The former, a five-year-old Innellan Phoenix gelding, was ridden by his owner Ciara O’Malley, while the year older Paddy Jo, a Martan Phaidin Mhor gelding with plenty of eventing experience behind him, was partnered by Hazel Barden for her mother, Jackie.

The six-year-old Classiebawn Black Jack gelding Busy Bee, ridden by Diamuid Ryan for owners Ann Benson and Sinead Killaly, repeated his Forth Mountain win in Section A so the qualifying tickets passed on to Lesley Jones with Emily McGowan’s six-year-old Gwennic de Goariva gelding Oisin Or (who also qualified in a flat class on Saturday) and to Romy Bolger on the family’s six-year-old Rosscon Abbey Tom Boy mare, Dunabbey.