THERE are plenty of people who have owned horses and ponies for years and have very little luck. Then you have those like Daryl Curran whose first pony in his own name, Caherpuca Chappy, has done him proud since being purchased in 2023, continuing that trend at last week’s Balmoral Show where he completed a North Down Marquees Connemara flat/performance championship double under the owner’s daughter, Amira.

Curran won a ridden class on the Michael and Kendra Rabbitte-bred grey at Dublin in 2023, when they went reserve champion, while they landed the flat title here last season. This year, of course, combinations had to qualify for both the ridden and working hunter Connemara classes and Curran bagged her two tickets at Duffy’s Equestrian Centre in mid-March. Caherpuca Chappy is an eight-year-old by Coolin America out of Loughfadda Darling, by Rebel Justice.

Judith Faherty, editor of the Irish Horse World section of The Irish Field, was at Balmoral Show on the Thursday and saw Curran win her ridden class. She later interviewed the delighted Co Kildare 15-year-old.

“I am speechless! It was worth the day off from school at Newbridge College to come back up here. He is the easiest pony I have ever had, he just flicks his toes and knows what he is doing. He is one in a million, I just love him so much.”

In the ridden section, Curran and Caherpuca Chappy won the class for riders aged between 10 and 16. The winner of the class for riders aged over 10 was won by the reserve champion, Monaghanstown Rosie, a six-year-old Tempo Cashel mare ridden for Co Wicklow owner/breeder Avril Kelly by her daughter Lucinda. A good show for Co Kildare’s Sadhbh O’Connor continued when she won the four and five-year-old class on her mother Aoife’s Teach Mór Sparrow, a 2020 dun gelding by Blakehill Sparrow.

Working hunter

In the working hunter section, Curran and Caherpuca Chappy topped the line-up in the class for riders aged between 10 and 16. The reserve champion was Margaret Thompson’s winner of the older riders’ class, Grove Rosalind, a five-year-old dun mare by Ross Fear Bui who was ridden by the very busy Rachel Rooney.

There were only seven entries in the Clifden High Performance qualifier (20 in 2024 and 19 in 2023) won by Lara Field on her mother Marjorie Hardiman’s home-bred Creganna Kerfuffle, a 10-year-old Silver Shadow grey.

In the in-hand section, Galway exhibitor Nikola Concannon won the mares’ class with her 2020 Tempo Active Atlas grey Cornfield Cressida, while the final line-up in the two and three-year-old class was topped by Eimear Coleman’s home-bred Clounanna Lady May, a three-year-old grey daughter of Doohulla Dunally.