THE first five all secured a ticket but there was a very tight battle for the top spot in the 153cm class at the last of the RDS working hunter pony qualifiers which was held on Wednesday at Barnadown.

The win went to Co Limerick’s Sophie Cusack riding her mother Orla’s Connemara gelding Clareville Codiac (89.5 points) with Co Meath’s Phoebe Horgan having to settle for second on her mother Hannah’s Garvagh Moonlight Boy (89.2), another Connemara gelding.

Between the pair, Cusack, who is coached by Jodie Moran, and Clareville Codiac gained the edge in the Gill Glynn-judged jumping phase where they were awarded a final score of 47.5 while Horgan and Garvagh Boy were on 47.2. Both combinations were awarded 42 points in the flat and in-hand phase judged by Simon Beirne.

Clareville Codiac qualified for this class at Dublin last year with Katie Wyse, finishing 11th, but they also qualified for the older Connemara performance hunter final which they won. This season, Cusack and the Caherlistrane Bay nine-year-old, who was bred in Co Galway by John Tierney out of the Slisneoir mare Tegan, won the 153cm Sports Pony Challenge final before finishing fourth in the Under 16 riders’ Connemara working hunter class at Balmoral.

As she was sitting her Leaving Cert, Phoebe Horgan was playing catch-up on many of her rivals this season. She and the seven-year-old Monaghanstown Boy gelding Garvagh Moonlight Boy made their qualifying debut at Killossery Lodge Stud, where they finished 30th of 54, and then bagged their ticket at Barnadown.