SISTERS Abi and Brooke Kenny both bagged golden tickets for the Connemara performance hunter classes at the Gallagher Dublin Horse Show, when winning at the qualifier in Forth Mountain last Saturday.

Abi (17) won Section A of the eight to 15-year-old class on the 2018 Silver Shadow gelding Hogan The Brave, who she has also qualified for the 158cm working hunter class at Dublin. Brooke finished joint first in Section B of the five to seven-year-old class on board another son of Silver Shadow, the 2018 grey Cupid’s Magic Shadow, who she has also qualified for the 153cm working hunter class in August. Both ponies are owned by the riders’ father Graham Kenny who, speaking also for his wife Sandy, the young riders’ flatwork coach, said: “Every year, we ask the girls if they would like to go away on a two-week holiday or qualify for the RDS and the answer has always been Dublin. This year, Brooke qualified twice, despite sitting her Junior cert at The King’s Hospital, where the girls are weekly boarders.”

The Kennys, who have a long association with the Ormond Foxhounds, break and produce young horses and ponies at their Fairymount Farm outside Roscrea where, in recent years, they have developed a Derby track and dressage arena. Former international event rider Katie O’Sullivan, a noted producer of young event horses, has been based at the farm for the past 12 months. She has bought a couple of horses in partnership with the Kennys.

Abi has evented Hogan The Brave just once this season, winning an EI100 (J) at Hillcrest last month on their first outing in this sphere since finishing second in the EI100 (J) national championships in October. There wasn’t such a good result in the EI100 (P) at Hillcrest for Brooke and Cupid’s Magic Shadow, the reigning EI90 (P) champions.

Brooke and Cupid’s Magic Shadow, who was purchased from Finola Heslin as a four-year-old, are entered in tomorrow’s EI100 (P) at Grove, where Abi rides the Foreman family’s ex-racehorse Aloneamongmillions in the EI100 (J). This 13-year-old Mahler gelding, who won six point-to-point races and two chases when trained by Sam Curling, has had one outing under Eventing Ireland rules, winning a four-runner EI100 for thoroughbreds at Clyda two weeks back.

There are more racing connections, as Graham holds a restricted licence to train National Hunt horses, while the girls’ brother Scott (19), who used to event and show jump and helps produce the young horses at home, recorded his first point-to-point win at their local meeting in Ballingarry at the end of May on the Enda Bolger-trained In Excelsis Deo.