BETTER known on the show jumping circuit, Lauren Walsh was one of just eight riders who contested the last RDS 133cm working hunter pony qualifier at Barnadown on Wednesday.

The young Co Tipperary rider claimed the first ticket on board her mother Gillian’s 22-year-old 128cm Grade A gelding Castlequarter Jack (79 points) on whom she took over the ride from her brother James at the start of last season.

Emily Glass finished second on the Connemara gelding Paddy Tom (77), a 10-year-old grey by I Love You Melody while Amber Lane placed third with Creganna Dancer (69.8), the 2008 Moores Clover mare on whom she won the starter stakes final at Dublin last August.

Walsh and Castlequarter Jack topped the scores of the jump judge Gill Glynn but, of the final top three, Lane and Creganna Dancer received the highest score in the flat and in-hand phase judged by Simon Beirne.

Thirty-eight combinations vied for the five qualifying spots in the starter stakes class at Barnadown where the final overall leaderboard was topped by Co Antrim’s Katie Surgenor and her mother Jackie’s seven-year-old 128cm black gelding DS Ebony Boy (79 points).

Lucy Ryan finished second on her mother Siobhan’s 16-year-old 133cm grey gelding Lucy’s Scamp (74.5) with Freya Kavanagh a close-up third on the nine-year-old skewbald mare The Cat Candy (74). Surgenor and DS Ebony Boy finished sixth in their starter stakes class at Balmoral in May.