Two-star show jumping

NEXT week’s Balmoral Show will again stage six international two-star show jumping competitions over the first three days in the Main Arena.

The jumping programme culminates in Friday’s Bottle Green and Horse Sport Ireland 1.45m/1.50m Grand Prix. This final competition, which has a prize-fund of £23,000, counts for Group D Longines rankings and is the second leg of Horse Sport Ireland’s 2019 jumping bonus challenge. Riders back on Irish soil and heading north include Greg Broderick, Mikey Pender and Dermott Lennon.

Competitors have pre-qualified for the national championships where, in a change to last year’s programme, Saturday morning’s Millar McCall Wylie 128cms championship for riders under 10 will be followed by the Botanica International amateur championship. These individual competitions will be preceded by the inter-schools open team show jumping championship.

Sizing Australia bidding for glory

A DUAL winner at Thomastown Show last Saturday under owner Nicki Russell, the 17-year-old New Frontier gelding Sizing Australia will be biding for a repeat victory in next Friday’s Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association Racehorse to Riding Horse class at Balmoral Show. To read more about this class, which has attracted 15 entries, see View From Above on page 16.

Clydesdales

FOR the second year running there are only 20 entries in total in the Ulster Bank Clydesdale section of the Balmoral Show with just a single horse in the broodmare, older gelding and two-year-old gelding classes next Friday.

Geoffrey Tanner returns with the 2018 champion, Downhill Daisy, and this three-year-old daughter of Carnaff Perfection will again first face last year’s reserve, Thomas Gregg’s similarly-aged Drumcraw Always Argyll bay Greenmount Lilly, in the yeld mare class.

Driving classes

THERE was only one private driving class at last year’s Balmoral Show which attracted 10 entries. This year there are two, divided on heights, but just nine animals in total have been entered for Friday morning.

This number includes the 2018 champion and reserve, Jonathan Carnduff’s Dutch-bred mare Zatinka M and James Baillie’s Chesney, while William Trimble returns with his 14-year-old Dunhaven Truly Awesome gelding Heartland Advantage to defend his title in the hackney division. Again, he will have most to fear from another entry in the pony class, last year’s reserve, Heartland Elmo, who is now being exhibited by Karen Dalzell.

Irish Famers Journal Show app

Our sister paper, the Irish Farmers’ Journal, has a Balmoral Show app, sponsored by Kubota, which can be downloaded free from all app stores. Among its features are the very useful ‘Find My Car’ as well as a map of the showgrounds and a guide to the many stands at the show. The Journal’s own stand is B26 on 3rd Avenue in Section B.