THE second dedicated Barrier Animal Health Spring Festival in Area 17 of The Pony Club was held last weekend at Castle Irvine, Necarne where over 300 young riders competed in arena eventing, dressage and show jumping.
Marcus Capel, Chief Executive Officer of The Pony Club, was once again in attendance together with Liz Lowry, Chairperson of Show Jumping. Following a busy Saturday at the Irish Pony Club’s hunter trials championships at Ballycahane, Co Limerick, Ivan Hatton, Operations Manager of the IPC, was delighted to accept Area 17’s invitation to visit the Spring Festival and he and Capel had a very productive meeting during the day.
“We were delighted to run the Northern Irish Barrier Animal Health Spring Festival Championships at Castle Irvine this weekend,” commented Fran Rowlatt McCormick, Area 17’s Representative for The Pony Club and event secretary.
“The stewards were very impressed by the standard of riding and awarded two horsemanship awards. Show jumping went to Jennifer Tate (Iveagh) in the PC110 class, while Arena Eventing went to Christopher Smyth (Mid Antrim) in the PC100 class.”
Over the weekend, there was passionate competition for the three team championships where points were awarded to each team competitor depending on their placing in their individual class (first = one point, second = two points, etc). The points for the three best-placed team members were added together to give the team score and the winners were those with the least points.
Show jumping
As all show jumping action took place in the Walled Garden on the Saturday, over tracks built by Alan Lynch and under the watchful eye of Janet Currie, FEI Steward (Level 3) and the aforementioned Liz Lowry, it was the first team championship decided.
The winners were the East Down Five of Annie Lucas (All Being Well), Darcy Turley (Marvellous Maisie), Cara Napier (Midget G) and Imogen Gray (Roundstone Star Express) who claimed the honours on a points score of 21 ahead of Iveagh Two (23) and Iveagh Five (24).
Lead scorer Danai Poulidi and her hard-working squad had 56 teams to deal with when deciding the destination of the show jumping team title, a number which climbed to 96 on Sunday when the scores started coming in again from the Walled Garden where Marcus Capel replaced Liz Lowry as one of the chief stewards for the arena eventing competitions.
There was a more clear-cut result here as the East Antrim Seven team of C.J. O’Brien (Coolgarrane Candy Pops), Grace McIlroy (Millennium Ace) and Cayleigh Erwin (Murphy) claimed the championship on 10 points with Seskinore One seven points adrift, just one ahead of North Down Two.
Dressage
The dressage classes, judged by Coreen Abernethy and Lucinda Webb-Graham in either the Rose Garden or the indoor arena, were spread over the weekend and two team titles were contested as there were more higher graded riders in this discipline.
However, no Branch was able to field a team on its own at Intermediate/Open level and the three who competed were all mixed. The honours, by a point, went to North Down duo of Kerry McGrady (Fonzie) and Eve Adair (Dot) plus Killultagh’s Amelia Wheeler (Lisnahall Miss Toffee) and East Antrim’s Erin McCrea (Eisfee).
Twenty-eight teams contested the PC80 (Grassroots) to Novice Championship and here the title went to the Route trio of Grace Elliott (Harrier Jet), Harry Campbell (Coxwood Fabian Stedman) and Leah Hanson (Shadows Hulk) who completed with 21 points to their credit. The four-rider teams representing East Antrim and North Down finished second (28) and third (31) respectively.
The next major inter-Branch competition for Pony Club members in Northern Ireland is the Area mounted games which are scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 24th at Oak Tree Farm, Hillsborough.