ONE show which issues updates all year round is the Northern Ireland Festival, the 19th version of which takes place next Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Cavan Equestrian Centre where this year they are offering additional Horse of the Year Show qualifiers.
The highlight of the hugely popular fixture is Sunday evening’s judging of the Festival working hunter championships and, having pre-qualified like all others, Co Kilkenny’s Aoibhinn Ruane will be hoping to progress through the early stages to make the decider in the Gold Ring with Dartans Atom Man.
Ruane won the overall pony title in 2023 and 2024 with the now 12-year-old 153cm chesnut gelding (they feature on this year’s catalogue cover) who also proved unbeatable in 2019.
He was then ridden by Co Tipperary’s Rianna Marnane whose sister Amber had partnered Danny’s Boy to victory the previous year.
Riding for south Co Dublin exhibitor Louise McCormack, Barry Higgins won the Festival horse working hunter championship last spring on Castanasky. That 2016 Irish Draught mare isn’t listed among the catalogue entries for next weekend but Higgins has qualified McCormack’s Kilkeegrace, a six-year-old ID mare by Purple Lad, for both the 80cm and 90cm divisions.
Lesley Jones, who won the horse title in 2005 (Golden Gamble), 2013 and 2015 (Double Take) plus 2023 (Cairnview Redwood Guy), has made entries on behalf of owners in a number of diverse classes over the weekend. Among these is the Festival working hunter-qualified Claudie The Dandy, Yvonne Pearson’s home-bred four-year-old Irish Sport Horse filly by Centre Stage.
Louise Lyons, who won the horse championship in 2018 and 2019 with the Janet Murray-bred ISH gelding MJM Laszlo (a Classic Vision bay who is still going strong in England at 15 years of age), has qualified Lady Perdita Blackwood’s 2024 Dublin working hunter champion Clandeboye, a seven-year-old ID gelding by Scrapman, for the 1m final.
Competition for these titles is always fierce not just for the prestige but also for the £1,000 prize money on offer for the winners of both the pony and horse titles.
Dublin qualifier
In addition to the many Horse of the Year Show qualifiers, Friday’s open racehorse to riding horse class is a qualifier for the Dublin Horse Show. Last year, the NIF winner was the Vincent Phelan-owned and ridden Askforbigmoney, a 2016 Ask gelding who went on to stand reserve champion at the RDS in August.
There’s hardly a horse or pony not catered for over the three days with nearly 700 individual animals being listed in the catalogue.
Late entries and on the day entries, when you can use cash or card, will be available providing the class is not full but they will be more expensive.
As regular attendees will attest, the Northern Ireland Festival has a great social aspect to it and this year there will again be hobby horse competitions in the Gold Ring prior to the evening performance championships on Saturday.
You will no doubt constantly hear the refrain of the Festival anthem Ride To Glory, which was written and performed by one of the visiting judges, Alexander Osborn, and also appeals to support the show’s charity, Air Ambulance NI which you can do by having your competition numbers laminated.
As organisers, judges and other officials, course builders, competitors and their supporters plus volunteers converge on the Cavan Equestrian Centre, they will be hoping the weather conditions are a lot drier than last year but not so much that the going gets too hard in the grass rings. It’s tough work being a groundsman.