Performance Horse Championships

THE young event horse championships at Balmoral Show have been replaced by the Gibson Agri Services performance horse championships for which horses also had to pre-qualify.

Two classes, for which there are 15 entries apiece, will be judged in the Main Arena early on Friday morning by former Irish Olympic event rider Eric Smiley and Co Limerick’s Chris Ryan.

Emma Jackson has entered three horses: the 2016 Kannan mare Tynan Dream in the four and five-year-old class and two stallions, the 2015 Beach Ball grey Vanderbitt and the 16-year-old Creevagh Ferro bay Creevagh For Sure in the older horses’ class.

The popular horse working hunter classes will be judged Fife’s Morag Snow and Julia Furness from Berwickshire in Horse Ring 1 on Friday afternoon when Antonia de Burgh will be hoping to take the top spot with the 2019 reserve champion, her now seven-year-old Porsch gelding, Burrough Hill Boy.

Snow will be joined by Essex’s Georgina Maywood to judge the working hunter cobs and the small horse working hunters, sponsored by the Lowry and Boyd families, in Horse Ring 1 on Saturday.

The pony ridden and Rydale working hunter sections will be judged in Horse Rings 1 and 2 by Berwickshire’s Julia Furness and Andrew Bowie from Kinross.

There will be plenty of excitement in the Main Arena at 12.30pm when the MMW show jumping competition for riders Under 10 starts. This is the last of eight national show jumping competitions, for which combinations had to pre-qualify, being preceded earlier in the day by the Botanica International amateur championship.

Five finals take place on Wednesday with the highlight of the show jumping programme, the Horse Sport Ireland and Bottle Green 1.40m Grand Prix, starting at 11.45am in the Main Arena on Friday.

There is no international jumping at the show this year.

Preview of ITM racehorse to riding horse class on View From Above page 19.