Susan Finnerty

IN what is turning into a watershed year for Irish agricultural shows, Charleville Show demonstrated how a show can continue to thrive with a dynamic committee and squad of knowledgeable stewards.

One quick-thinking example was the installation of a ‘big screen’ for visitors to watch the Ireland-France football match and a major traffic plan swings into action each year to cater for the crowds descending on the two-day show.

The improved N20 and M6 motorway are one of the reasons why the Glynn family, from south Galway, travel to Charleville each year.

“It’s only an hour and 20 minutes from home to here now with the roads,” explained Cathriona, and the return journey to Ardrahan must have felt even shorter after her Yealand Pilgrim won the supreme pony championship.

This took place on Saturday evening when visiting British judges Philip Hilton, Polly Mallender and Karl Morris joined forces to decide on their overall champion from a quality line-up.

Several hopeful contenders were entered for Athlone and All Ireland Welsh shows the following day but sportingly stayed on to the end. These included Aidan Williamson, who had a clean sweep in the morning’s in-hand and Welsh championships with his father William’s Goldengrove Temptress and Cadlanvalley Crusader.

It was Glynn’s Whalton High Flyer 12-year-old, winner of the earlier show hunter championship, that was called forward to the delight of his pilot Alannah Glynn.

“She does all the work with him and deserves all the credit. He lives out in a field all the time with a rug on, goes hacking and is just treated like any other pony” said her thrilled mother. “He just had such a great gallop,” enthused Mallender, a special needs teacher in Nottinghamshire, who, along with producer Karl Morris, was an 11th hour stand-in judge.

The reserve sash went to the versatile Knocklucas Chloe and Susie Doyle who had won the working hunter title. An 11-year-old mare, by Kings Master, her experience at riding club events and the previous week’s run in the EI90 amateur class at Kedrah with owner Fiona O’Dwyer, paid off around John Fitton’s course with its trademark Charleville bank.

MAIN OUTING

Charleville is one of the main pre-Dublin outings for several producers and Sunday brought so many entries in the ridden horse classes that an additional ring will be added next year. The working hunter title was the first to be decided, with Ann Leonard winning here with the homebred Tinaranas Inspector gelding, Ballingowan Euphoria. Mallender and Morris’s reserve choice came from the four-year-old class won by Storm Oxley’s Ars Vivendi mare Solsboro Sweetpea.

Leonard later took the reserve ridden hunter title on board Glenn Knipes’s four-year-old winner, Farmhill Clover Tom. By Wilmoner, he was having his first outing and was bought last year from his Leap breeder Brian Sheahan, but gave way to another West Cork-bred in Sonny Bill for the overall championship.

On hand to watch Joanna Jones produce another win from the Breeda Mountain five-year-old for his Kanturk owners Pat and Elizabeth Ahern, was his breeder James O’Keeffe, who also stands the champion’s Irish Draught sire.

“It [champion] was everything a small hunter should be. He rode beautifully, was so balanced and he just came straight back to you,” said Mallender, who competes her own palomino Irish Sport Horse, Pancake.

The young horse classes get stronger each weekend this season and Charleville produced another epic championship.

Having returned the Morrissey Cup to the secretary’s tent for last year’s championship winner Jane Scully, Lorna Twomey found herself bringing it home after her Lucky Jack won a vintage three-year-old gelding class.

By Grafenstolz, the Twomeys now own his eventing dam Latina, once owned by Lucy McCarthy, and the Lucky Luke mare has been scanned in foal to the thoroughbred sire Diamond Discovery.

“He has such a great walk and there were four or five in that class that were lovely movers. I know nowadays you’re not judging for young hunters anymore, you’re judging young competition horses. So you’ve got to think of the movement because whatever discipline they’re in, they’ve got to move and be athletes. And if they’re not athletes at two and three, they’re never going to be athletes when they’re older,” observed Henrietta Knight.

“I felt there was a very strong standard in Balmoral [where she also judged in May] but the three-year-old geldings here today were stronger than the three-year-old geldings in Balmoral”

Standing reserve was Sheelagh Barry’s Darwin, making her first appearance since the Harlequin Du Carel filly won the All Ireland yearling title at Kildysart last year.

Knight also judged Horse Sport Ireland’s broodmare championship. Part of HSI’s national showing series, it produced a win here for John Roche’s Travelling Solo. By the British-based stallion The Traveller, she won at the Horse of the Year Show for Katie Jerram and is a previous The Irish Field Breeders Championship finalist.

Two mares who have already qualified for this year’s Dublin final are Kieran Fahey’s Madame Noir (who won the Philip Hilton-judged broodmare title) and the Drohan family’s Lucys Princess, with this pair filling the next places. Taking the final share of the prize money was another Kings Master daughter in Tom Power’s Queenie, the 2009 All Ireland traditional foal champion at Mountbellew.

“A good foreleg, a good walk and I do like to look at the foal to see what she’s produced,” said Knight.

Foal entries were surprisingly low this year butHilton found a worthy champion in Quin breeder Gina Heaps’s colt by a rare Heraldik son, Herald III. “He’s the first foal by him in this country” said his proud owner.