THE Irish Pony Club’s Mackey show jumping Classic finals were held last Sunday at the Coilóg Equestrian Centre in Co Kildare where the feature class, the 1.20m Classic, was won by Elisa O’Connor of the Sligo Branch riding Oilean Honey.

Only O’Connor and last year’s class winner, Aisling McGreal of the powerful Longford Ladies’ team, progressed to the jump-off round where the Sligo representative fared the better on her father Raymond’s seven-year-old home-bred mare by Lougherne Cashell.

“This was my first time to compete in the Classic,” said 19-year-old O’Connor, “and I’m really looking forward to going to the Army Equitation School for a week as my prize. I’ve just returned to NUI Galway, where I’m in second year studying global commerce, but will be back out competing this coming weekend in the young riders’ show at Cavan.

“I am also jumping Honey’s half-brother Oilean Dunlop (by Captain Clover) and half-sister Oilean Unica (by Le One). We use Oilean as our prefix because we run the Island View Riding Stables overlooking Donegal Bay. In addition to horses, I’m obsessed with pugs and have two – Duchess and her puppy, Bruce!”

As McGreal already spent a week at McKee, the second prize of another training bursary to the Equitation School went to the third-placed Jack Ryan of the Kilkenny Branch riding his father Syl’s 10-year-old Grade A Connemara gelding Tynagh Sam, a son of Straboe Prince. That combination had earlier finished second in the 1.10m Classic Finder to another of the Longford Ladies, Edel Whyte and the dun gelding Abel Star, a seven-year-old by Manninard Abel.

The day’s action opened with the 90cms Classic which went the way of Kildare’s Anna White and the 14-year-old former Grade A mare Breakfast At Tiffanys. Kate Egan of the Laois Branch finished second on the similarly-aged Connemara gelding Slieve Rushen Young Oliver ahead of the Wicklows’ Jazmine Arthur riding another Connemara, the eight-year-old Spiddal Wills Boy gelding Carra Cave Boy.

The Islands’ Matthew Kelly was fourth in the opener on Galway Jetsetter before guiding the 138cms Grade A gelding to victory in the 1m Classic Starter with his closest rival being Avril Kelly of the Carlow Branch on the 14-year-old Ghareeb mare New Park Ghareeb.

Finishing third in that class on Cruising For Fun was Kilkenny’s Sarah O’Donnell who travelled to Coilóg on Sunday with Syl Ryan as, while her eldest sister Christine was at Kilguilkey House at the Eventing Ireland national championships, the rest of her family were all in Croke Park.

And not just to support their county in the all-Ireland camogie final but also the middle daughter of the family, show jumper Grace, who was on the panel as a forward but, disappointingly, didn’t get a game.

A one-time Kilkenny Branch member, Grace did however make her racecourse debut at Listowel on Thursday, finishing fourth in the amateur flat race on the family-owned and trained Bobeska.