THE first national championships in this year’s Irish Pony Club calendar, the Mackey hunter trials, take place next Saturday, April 22nd, at Annaharvey Farm, Co Westmeath.

The order of running has been changed for this season with the junior pairs and junior singles taking place first thing followed by the novice intermediate pairs and singles. The featured Mackey teams of three championship will be the fifth competition on the programme followed by the senior pairs and senior singles.

The hunting horn competition for the McCalmont trophy is due to take place around 3pm.

While many members will have competed in local hunter trials over the past few weeks, the Killinick Harriers Branch of the IPC is holding a dedicated Pony Club hunter trials tomorrow at Forth Mountain just outside Wexford town.

Full details of the classes on offer and the qualifications needed to compete can be found on the Killinick PC Facebook page. There too you will see photographs of former Killinick member Jamie Codd, the leading point-to-point rider and amateur jockey who won the cross-country race at the Cheltenham Festival on Cause Of Causes and was second last Saturday in the Grand National at Aintree on the same horse.

Members of Area 17 of The Pony Club (Northern Ireland) have been representing their Branches and Area in Britain already this season, most recently at the Dengie championships in dressage and show jumping at Addington Manor in Buckinghamshire.

The Iveaghs’ Laura King was first to compete on the Saturday when she rode Youngstars Cheetah into ninth place in her Open dressage arena before finishing fourth in the Tubtrugs-sponsored Open dressage to music championships. Laura then partnered sister Katie, riding Roc Tredudon, into third place in the dressage to music pairs.

One of the youngest competitors in her class, the East Antrims’ Alex Byrne placed ninth in her Novice arena on the 20-year-old Twylands Prose gelding Chinook Calibra.

In the Dengie show jumping championships, the best Area 17 performance in the Open Grand Prix came from Ellen Thompson of the Seskinore Harriers who finished sixth on the 13-year-old 148cms grey gelding Trendy Blue.

Sunday featured the Dengie Debut Competition which, in its first year, provides a stepping stone to the Dengie Winter League Class and again Area 17 was very well represented with four riders making the trip over to compete. In the warm-up class, Bethany Smith riding Maximillion took top spot for the Iveaghs.

In the Debut Championship Class, it was the turn of Caoimhe Hegarty from RD Equestrian to be in the ribbons as she partnered Mr Shamrocker to a double clear to finish sixth. Caoimhe also took home the coveted Horsemanship Award, a massive achievement with over 80 riders from throughout the United Kingdom in the competition.

The poles were then raised for the Winter League warm-up class where among Area 17’s six representatives the Iveaghs’ Erin Burns (Allistragh Beauty) and RD Equestrian’s Jeni Lyons (Fainne) recorded fast clears to place ninth and 10th respectively.

The riders were delighted with the support they had from their parents and other family members on their trip to Addington Manor, their District Commissioners and Area 17 representative Liz Lowry.

Last month, 12 members represented Area 17 at The Pony Club winter triathlon finals in Milton Keynes. While all performed well against some top-class opposition, the best result was recorded by Freya Axten of the North Down Branch as she finished 11th in the Open girls’ competition mainly thanks to her excellent second-placed score of 920 in the shooting phase.