AT the end of a long day at the Irish Pony Society’s Spring Show in the Mullingar Equestrian Centre last Thursday week, Cara Foley partnered her mother Sue Ann’s Thorndale Melody to claim the overall supreme pony championship.

Foley and the eight-year-old mare progressed to the finale by winning the open Connemara working hunter championship while they also stood reserve in the ridden Connemara championship and the open Mountain and Moorland ridden championship.

The grey, who is by the great performance influence I Love You Melody, was bred in Co Wicklow by Tessa Collier out of her Grange King’s Surf mare Fernside Topaz Sea.

The Foleys purchased Thorndale Melody in April last year when pony and rider quickly gelled in the mare’s novice season. Among their highlights was qualifying at Rincoola for the ridden Under 16 Connemara class at Dublin and being crowned novice and then overall working hunter pony champions at the IPS’s national summer show in Hollypark.

Already this year, the Co Limerick combination qualified at the Galway spring show in Duffys for both the ridden and working hunter Connemara sections at next month’s Balmoral Show (May 14th to 17th) while they also went Connemara champion and supreme reserve champion at the Limerick/Clare Area Spring Show.

They are heading to the Northern Ireland Festival in Cavan next weekend, in a bid to qualify for the Horse of the Year Show, after which they will turn their attention to qualifying for the open 143cm working hunter pony class at Dublin (Foley is too young to compete in the performance Connemara qualifiers) and the ridden Connemara Under 16 class.

Standing reserve in the overall supreme at Mullingar was the open working hunter champion, Dartans Atom Man who was ridden by Aoibhinn Ruane for her mother Helena Hennessey Ruane. This combination is also going to Cavan at the weekend when rider and the 12-year-old chesnut gelding are bidding to bring up a hat trick of victories in the Festival working hunter pony championship.

Foxrock goes supreme

The horse classes at Mullingar were very poorly supported but, nevertheless, there was a supreme championship which was awarded to the hunter champion, Foxrock, who was ridden for owner Amanda Benson by Brian Murphy.

Brian Murphy and Foxtrot claimed the supreme horse championship at the Irish Pony Society Spring Show at Mullingar EC \ John O'Carroll

Before he won the two titles, the Reach For The Stars gelding topped the short line-up in the heavyweight class which, like so many other classes at the show, was a qualifier for the Royal International Horse Show at Hickstead (July 22nd to 27th).

In a bid to follow up his success in the heavyweight championship at Dublin last August, the five-year-old Foxrock is now going on a break (bypassing both the Northern Ireland Festival and Balmoral) while the reserve supreme, the working hunter class winner in the TopSpec-sponsored Gold Ring, Clandeboye, is primed for a trip to Cavan.

Winner of the working hunter title on the final day of the Dublin Horse Show last August, Lady Perdita Blackwood’s Irish Draught gelding, a seven-year-old son of Scrapman, has qualified for the 1m Festival working hunter horse final where rider/producer Louise Lyons will be hoping to add the overall championship to her Festival record.