TWO weeks ago, the Irish Pony Club’s Tetrathlon Committee sent two teams to the Northern England regional minimus competition at Sedgefield where both won their respective divisions.

The girls’ team, which comprised Ruth Barrett (Ward Union), Emily Martin (East Galway), Jane O’Donnell (Tipperary), Jodie Zebedee (Kildare) and Ellie Filan (Sligo), recorded a score of 18,136 points as they finished ahead of Northern Pink (17,658) and Wales & Borders (15,144).

The Irish girls, who are all aged 11, did extremely well individually with Barrett topping the leaderboard on 4,644 points. Martin finished third (4,530), just ahead of O’Donnell (4,518), while Zebedee was seventh (4,444) and Filan eighth (4,376). Barrett, O’Donnell and Zebedee all took the maximum 1,400 points in the ride phase while Zebedee won the run with 1,108 points.

Only four squads took part in the boys’ team competition which Ireland won on a total of 18,242 points with Wales & Borders second (18,054) and Northern third (14,036). The IPC members were Matthew Farrell (Carlow), Aonghus Cooke (Galway Mid County), Cathal White (Kildare), Tom Murtagh (Kildare) and Conor Bourke (Bray).

On 4,626 points, Cooke was just beaten for individual honours by the Wales & Borders’ Ioan Creesey Rodgers (4,756). The Galway Mid County representative took the full 1,400 points from the ride (as did fellow team members Burke, Murtagh and Farrell) and won the swim (1,328). Murtagh topped the run scores on 1,252.

According to one proud parent, the Irish were praised for their riding skills at the awards’ presentation; they continued: “Every boy and girl did themselves, parents, the Irish Pony Club and country proud and we would like to thank the backroom staff, Sheila and Elizabeth Gayer and the ever committed and dedicated John Flood.”