GRACE Maxwell-Murphy attended just one day of last weekend’s Northern Ireland Festival but her journey up from Craughwell to Cavan proved well worthwhile as she won the Ellie McDonnell ridden pony supreme championship on Glenville Glic.

En route to the overall title, the five-year-old stallion, who is only starting under saddle, won his open Mountain and Moorland large breeds ridden pony class – a great achievement in itself for a novice – and the section championship. Standing reserve, having finished second in the same class, were Pauline Dahill and Charlotte and Gill Glynn’s seven-year-old Glencarrig Knight gelding Nire Valley Count.

Glenville Glic (the Irish for clever) is by the same sire out of the Currachmore Cashel mare Clooneybrien Peigín. He was bred in Co Clare by Francis Murphy from whom Maxwell-Muphy and her husband William McMahon purchased the grey as a foal having seen him advertised for sale on Done Deal.

He was shown every year from a yearling up, winning many championships and the highly prestigious three-year-old colt class at Clifden in 2023. This year he won the Novice ridden Connemara and his in-hand class at the Irish Pony Society Limerick/Clare Area show where he went champion and the overall in-hand championship and the supreme ridden championship at the IPS spring show in Mullingar.

As there is no stallion class on the schedule, Glenville Glic is not among the Craughwell yard’s entry at Balmoral but this does feature the home-bred Gleann Rua Monarch who was second in his small riding horse class at Dublin last August.

This six-year-old Moylough Legacy gelding is a half-brother of the 2015 Camillo VDL gelding Glenna Rua Da Vinci with whom Maxwell-Murphy and McMahon won the supreme hunter championship at Dublin in 2022.