ROUGHLY 170 entries have been received across the board for the Mackey Equestrian Irish Pony Club Show Jumping Classic which takes place tomorrow at CoilÓg.

While entries will be taken on the day for the non-Classic competitions, combinations have already qualified from Area fixtures around the country for the 90cm SJ Classic and the 1m Classic Finder. There will be final qualifiers in the morning in the Lime Arena for the 1.10m Classic Finder and 1.20m Classic Finder.

Starting at the lowest level at 9.30am, all Classic competitions will take place in the Hornbeam Arena. When qualification has completed in the Lime Arena, it will be opened to all members from those jumping cross-poles to those taking on 80cm tracks. There will be consolation classes for those who had jumped earlier in the 90cm and 1m Classics.

There will be prizes on offer from Mackey Equestrian but first and second in the 1.20m Classic Finder also win bursaries to the Army Equitation School. Last year, these were awarded to Longford’s Katie Duignan and to Ketelyn Doughan who represented the North Tipperary and Ormond Branch.

Inter-county dressage

While the inter-Branch competitions are coming to an end for 2025, we noticed that an inter-country dressage competition has been publicised by the Irish Pony Club.

Don’t get too excited however as this is a virtual competition being organised by the Pony Club International Alliance so there will be no need to start packing human and equine suitcases. We don’t know how strict the deadline (yesterday, Friday, September 5th) was for showing an interest in being on a team but tests need to be filmed between the 20th and 30th of this month.

The Kildare Hunt Branch of the Irish Pony Club has announced that it will hold a dedicated hunter trials for Pony Club members on Sunday, October 12th at Punchestown racecourse. The schedule will include pre-novice and novice, pairs and singles competitions.

Tomorrow, the Kildares are holding the first of four legs of a novice cross-country league at Punchestown which is confined to Branch members.