Girls’ individual \ Margie McLoone

Clarke leads North Kilkenny to victory

MOLLY Jean Clarke followed in the footsteps of Pixie Murphy by winning the girls’ individual title for the North Kilkenny Hunt Branch at last weekend’s Lyons of Limerick DEFENDER/Irish Pony Club National Minimus Championships.

On Saturday, she retained all her 1,400 ride points on Taylors Dicey Reilly, while on Sunday she won the Laura Breheny Memorial Trophy for the best swim (1,272 points) and the Keira-Eva Mooney Trophy for the best run (1,156) to complete on a total of 3,828.

Of course, she was also on the North Kilkenny squad, who won both the John Flood team cup and the Sisk cup for the leading girls’ squad in the team competition.

She was backed up by Katie Murphy, who finished 14th overall in the girls’ individual championship, but has another year to go in Minimus, Nancy Lyons Teehan (second) and Lucy O’Connell (fifth).

Molly and Nancy both go to the same school, St Aidan’s Kilmanagh, and have grown up through Pony Club together.

They are both members of Kilkenny City Harriers Athletics Club and Kilkenny Swimming Club, as are Lucy O’Connell and Katie Murphy. They swim at 5.30am a few mornings a week, so it’s lovely to see their hard work rewarded with great results.

In addition to the national titles, Nancy was on the winning Ireland White squad in the international team competition, where she finished second individually.