Margie McLoone

IRISH Pony Club members once again punched well above their weight at the recent NFU Mutual tetrathlon championships in Britain. They recorded wins at all levels, both as teams and individually, under the guidance of manager/trainer John Flood who was assisted by Sheila Gayer, chairperson of the IPC’s tetrathlon committee.

As ever, the open cross-country course at Bishop Burton College was well up to the 1.10m height with some very wide spreads. Flood thought it more technical than usual with fence 12 causing plenty of problems throughout the division.

This comprised a big square oxer followed by three strides on a bending line to an offset corner. He described the junior and intermediate tracks as up to height but not too technical. The IPC competitors were joined for their course walk by world class eventing coach Charlie Micklem who twice completed Badminton.

This was the first year that the IPC had been invited to send a junior squad to the championships and they performed extremely well, with the Duhallow quartet of Hannah Gayer, Marcella O’Connor, Aine Kelleher and Beverley Hayes winning the girls’ team competition on a score of 12,838, holding off the challenge of the Eglinton Hunt Branch by 35 points.

In her first year in junior company, South Westmeath’s Rebecca Lowe, twice Irish minimus champion, placed second individually on 4,673 points behind Emma Whitaker (4,740) of the Lancaster & District Branch.

The pair had finished in the reverse order at the IPC tetrathlon championships in Tattersalls at the beginning of the month. Clare’s Leah O’Neill completed in eighth place on 4,512.

In the junior boys’ event, there was a brilliant individual win for Wicklow’s Robbie Savage who recorded a score of 4,794 on his way to beating Conor Dougall (4,784) of Braes of Derwent South and David Dow (4,778) of Newmarket and Thurlow. Savage’s performance was backed up by James Drumm of Westmeath (fourth) who won the run, Shillelagh’s Tim O’Brien (seventh) and Kildare’s Jack Sargent (10). Warrington’s Noah Pim finished a bit off the pace in 27th place but he, like all other IPC competitors in this class, went clear across the country.

Members of The Pony Club’s Area 17 (Northern Ireland) also competed at the championships and best placed at this level was the Seskinore Harriers’ Matthew Murnaghan who finished sixth.

At intermediate level, the Irish boys squad of Liam Kelleher (Duhallow), Fionn Campbell (Ward Union), Padraig Fives (West Waterford), James Kavanagh (Carlow) and Dillon McAuliffe (Duhallow) won the international boys’ team event while the Northern Ireland quintet of North Down’s Christine McVeigh, Charlotte de Montmorency and Anna Brown plus Ellen Erskine (East Down) and Lindsay McIvor (Seskinore Harriers) placed third in the international girls’ competition.

The best individual result came from the IPC champion Kavanagh who finished third in the boys’ competition on 4,370 points behind Jack Stephens (4,544) of the Brecon & Talybont Hunt Branch and the Bennachies’ Lewis Khan (4,460).

The Laois Branch found themselves in a quandary before the championships as two members of their open tetrathlon team, cousins John and Jamie Carroll, were also on the show jumping team due to compete in Cheshire last weekend.

The club decided to send the Carroll’s plus Gordon Shannon and David Brickley to Bishop Burton where they duly landed the open boys’ branch competition.

Jamie Carroll was also a member of the Irish squad who won the international boys’ team competition at this level along with Mike Healy and Mark Collins (Warrington), Leo Micklem (Bray) and Jack Savage (Wicklow). They claimed the title on a score of 17,393, a massive 707 points clear of the second-placed English team.

IPC champion Healy was best-placed individually in second (4,571) just behind Chris Harris (4,574) of the Four Burrow Hunt branch and in front of East Down’s Paddy Erskine who finished third on 4,417.

The Irish squad of Roisin Duggan McSweeney (Limerick), Eimear O’Brien (West Waterford), Faye Mansfield (Duhallow), Sophie Lowe (South Westmeath) and Eimear O’Neill (Meath) saw off their sole rivals England to win the open girls’ international team event with Duggan McSweeney joining up with twin sister Aoife and 14-year-old Alex Stewart to win the team event for their Limerick Branch.

In her first year out of Juniors, Eimear O’Neill also won the individual competition on a score of 4,344, ahead of Mollie Hansford (4,292) of the Cotley Hunt Branch and IPC champion Lowe who finished joint-third on 4,256. Mansfield placed joint-fifth with a total of 4,212.