THE RDS National Equestrian Championships at the Ballsbridge showgrounds start next Friday but, in conjunction with the Young Eventhorse Series, and with sponsorship from Horse Sport Ireland, they commence in Kilmessan, Co Meath on Tuesday.

The MacMahon family’s Lambertstown venue has hosted a variety of competitions over the years from the IPS Kildare North Leinster Area show, a very popular Draught show, which saw the inclusion of performance classes in the Derby arena, and the Future Event Horse League qualifiers and finals.

Although the 2011 FEHL final was held at Lambertstown in the year following the death of Lt-Col Ronnie MacMahon, one of the League founders, his wife Judy and daughter Emily waited some time before deciding to stage another fixture at their home in the Royal County. The Lambertstown Derby Show, run in association with the Meath Hunt, was held there last September and this year’s renewal will take place on Sunday, September 19th.

The need to mow all the rings and spruce up the fixed fences again for their Derby Show became more urgent when the MacMahons were approached, and agreed, to host next week’s Young Eventhorse Series/RDS championships for four- and five-year-old event horses, for Junior/Young Rider event horses and for Performance Connemaras and Irish Draughts.

As has been the case with Dublin in recent years, horses and ponies qualified at Young Eventhorse Series venues but, in a change this season, all classes took place on the one day.

In the young event horse classes, the first three in the rankings each week were awarded €70 prize money by the organisers, while Liam Lynskey, of the Derryronane Stud in Co Mayo, presented €100 to the highest-placed qualifier in each class.

The Traditional Irish Horse Association sponsored the highest-placed TIH-registered four and five-year-old while Treo Eile, which promotes the retraining of racehorses, sponsored the highest-placed thoroughbred across the young event horse and the Junior/Young Rider event horse leagues. All prizes will be presented on Tuesday when there will also be a prize for the highest-placed mare in both young event horse classes.

Entries can be found on the Equipe website with the YES administrator/scorer, Angela McGahern, saying: “We wanted to make the competition process more seamless and I believe Equipe has been a great success for ease of access to entries/timetabling and live scoring which benefits owners and riders.”