AFTER filling a number of top places in the Clifden High Performance Final over the last few years, Co Wicklow rider Edwina O’Connor finally won the sash last Friday after landing the feature event on the performance day at the 2018 Connemara Pony Festival with her mother Noreen’s Agharanny Minstrel.

The 16 combinations had qualified at four qualifying shows. Course designer Charles Hanley built a challenging 1.10m track of rustic fences which extended into ring two and included two doubles of banks, a combination of plank verticals and a full height joker fence.

At the end of the exciting class, it was the three combinations that cleared that final fence who filled the top three places. Two of those, the winner and second place, managed to produce foot-perfect clear rounds.

Judges Rachel Bennett Hamilton and Dorothy Guildford awarded the top score of 147 points to O’Connor and her 11-year-old Castleside JJ-sired stallion. Bred by Sean Hynes and purchased as a foal from the Clifden Sales by O’Connor, she broke and produced the Class 1 stallion herself. The winner received a decent prize of €1,200 (€100 of which goes to the breeder) plus the Westside Mirah Trophy.

Just one point behind on a score of 146 was the previous week’s Dublin working hunter performance champion, Theresa and Michael Clarke’s 10-year-old All Smoke gelding Grey Smoke, ridden by Alicia Devlin Byrne.

British rider Amy Smith extended her trip when qualifying her own 11-year-old gelding Laburnum Richard, the 217 HOYS working hunter winner, at Moycullen Show and she got her reward when called forward third in the final line up on a score of 142. Smith cleared the final joker fence but picked up four faults at 7b.

The remaining 13 knocked the final fence, but fourth-placed Finn Curran from Letterfrack cleared the rest of the track to be awarded a score of 137 with Charlie of Blakehill and Waterford’s Pauline Dahill slotted in fifth (124) aboard Joan Dahill’s Glencairn Sixpence.

DOUBLE CHAMPION

It was O’Connor’s best trip to Clifden yet as she was earlier crowned the working hunter champion after winning the stallion working hunter class aboard the same mount. Judged over two phases – jumping and conformation/flat work, O’Connor won with 87 points. Three points behind on a score of 84 was Devlin Byrne with Adrian Jones’ Brock Blizzard, ahead of the ridden champion from Thursday’s show, Lankill Lad and Lauren McNally.

The winner of the potential working hunter for ponies aged four to six, Glenmore Buster, ridden by Jake Morton, was awarded the reserve champion sash. Lucy and Gill Glynn’s five-year-old gelding by Brock Lodge Buster won ahead of Karen Parker’s Woodhavin Katie under Lucy Cunningham.

Cillian Curran was a popular winner of the under 16 working hunter class with Caoimhe Curran’s Southeast Starlight. The class attracted 17 entries and the runner-up was Emily McCourt with Rathbane Legend (Tulira Robuck – Ballyglass Lily), winner of the Sarah Miller Future Performance class at the Midlands last month.

Pauline Dahill is always a good supporter of Clifden and she got her just reward when winning the over 16 working hunter aboard Glencarin Sixpence (Ballymore Paprika – Glencarin Biddy). Local man Pat O’Neill slotted into second place with his home-bred gelding Illaunurra Shadow (Silver Shadow – Illaunurra Mist) when delivering a nice clear.