THE three-day Northern Ireland Festival commences next Friday at Cavan Equestrian Centre where six arenas will be in use to cater for a huge variety and number of classes.

The feature event of the weekend is the Festival supreme working hunter championship for which animals must have been pre-entered upon qualification. Since 2005, this title has been won by four ponies and six horses with Lesley Webb and Emma Jackson riding two champions apiece.

Having accumulated 43 Eventing Ireland points over the past two seasons, Jackson’s 2014 winner, Creevagh Connection, is now successfully competing in England. The 2003 Ricardo Z gelding Double Take, who claimed the title the previous year, is eventing here with Webb who has qualified the former RDS supreme champion hunter for the weekend’s 1m section.

REGAIN CROWN

Another previous Festival champion bidding to regain his crown is the Connemara Derrygimbla Atlantic Storm who, in 2010, was partnered by Christopher Scott to claim the £1,000 prize but is now the mount of Jodie Creighton.

Just shy of 150 classes are scheduled for the three days plus 47 championships and seven supreme championships. There are plenty of well-known horses and ponies in the catalogue including many winners and champions from last year’s Festival such as Ardfry Baileys (Jennifer Torrens) and Kenilwood Monarch (Creighton).

While former winners are always of interest so too are newcomers to the ridden show scene. Amy Watchorn has entered the four-year-old Orestus gelding Neat Napoleon, who was successfully shown in hand by Tiernan Gill, while Nicola Perrin is due to compete on the level and in workers with her Irish Draught gelding Ballarin Rocky The Conqueror, a winner at the recent hunter show in Barnadown.

One horse sure to attract attention on Friday is the former Willie Mullins-trained Arvika Ligeonniere who is due to make his showing debut in the novice racehorse to riding horse class. The 2005 French-bred gelding, who won 10 races on the track including four at Grade 1 level, is unlikely to go unnoticed as he measures 180cms.

When pre-entries for the Festival closed at the end of March, the organisers had received just over 1,000. These have since increased by 100+ and numbers can be expected to climb even higher in the days ahead. Seventeen students from CAFRE’s Enniskillen campus will be helping the organisers during the show and the plan is for results to be updated as quickly as possible.