THE Waterford Hunt Branch of the Irish Pony Club held the first of this year’s Connolly’s Red Mills eventing championship qualifiers last Sunday at the Bogossian family’s lovely Ballinamona estate outside Waterford city.

There were some new, beautifully-presented cross-country fences out on the track which had a good covering of grass and had been watered as had the all-weather surfaces to help keep the dust down. The organisers were full of praise for David Bogossian who went out of his way to help, allowing access to hoses in the yard to wash horses and ponies down.

It was a long day in the sun for the many officials and volunteers who made the fixture such a success with 184 competitors keen to get their Pony Club eventing season under way.

The host Branch recorded a win in Section B of the Intermediate class through Lilymai Walsh and the Irish Sport Horse gelding Chapel Hill Dark Spark, an eight-year-old Krafty Clover bay who she also competes with Eventing Ireland, finishing third of 28 in the EI100 (P) national championship at Kilguilkey House last year.

One of 27 Waterford Branch members in action on Sunday, Walsh and Chapel Hill Dark Spark also compete with Showjumping Ireland and recently won an RDS junior equitation qualifier at The Meadows.

All-the-way win

Five of the 13 starters in that division completed on their dressage scores while two failed to finish and it was a similar story in Section B, where there were 14 starters of whom three did not complete. The narrow all-the-way winner was Carlow Branch member Lily Redmond and the 10-year-old ISH mare Cartown Trending, a chesnut daughter of Future Trend.

The Carlows doubled up when Harry Griffith topped the final leaderboard in Section B of the Intro Intermediate with the traditionally-bred Nobleoak Stormy Night, a five-year-old grey mare by Cheeky Bobby Sparrow, while Section A went the way of Wicklow’s Hannah Breen who, on board the seven-year-old gelding Moanbaun Mozart, was left in the lead when the two ahead of her after dressage were eliminated.

There were three well-filled sections in the Junior competition where there were quite a few eliminations for falls but thankfully no one was injured.

The honours in Section A went to the Island Branch’s Freya Fitzgerald who led from start to finish on Aille Sinoia Scooby; Lillian Ward, a member of the Ward Union Branch, won Section B with the Connemara gelding Killea Peril, a 10-year-old bay by Killea Island on whom she was one of just four of 24 starters to complete on their dressage score; while Lucy Flynn of Newcastle Lyons claimed Section C when finishing on her first phase score with the 11-year-old bay gelding Rock Houdini.

A double for the Newcastle Lyons Branch came up when Millie Anna Dalton landed Section B of the Under 12s’ competition on Daphne Scholts’s Jubilee (25.25 penalties), the 23-year-old chesnut gelding she competes under SJI rules and on whom she finished second in the Irish Pony Society sports pony challenge starter stakes final at Killossery Lodge Stud last month. Waterford’s Daniel Bogossion finished second with Millfields Killnascully (26.75).

The most comprehensive win of the day came in Section A where the South Union Hunt Branch’s Alexis Jordan and the 15-year-old piebald gelding Twenty For Out completed on their winning dressage score to register a five-point victory over their nearest rivals, the Killinicks’ Lucy Day and Kilkisheen Girl (31.50).