ELSEWHERE in these pages there is mention of TRI Equestrian’s sponsorship of the Irish Pony Club’s dressage team, who are competing at next week’s Royal Windsor Horse Show and of the Kildare Branch’s Fun Minimus and Tetrathlon at Punchestown on Sunday.

As they have from the start of this year’s Stepping Stones to Success league, the firm sponsored the Pony Producers’ class at Wexford Equestrian, where the Caitie Slater-partnered Grantstown VIP held on to her lead to win the league on 30.5 points, although the black mare was narrowly beaten into second on the day.

Owned by the Belline Equestrian-based rider and her mother Allison, the five-year-old is listed on the Irish Horse Register with no pedigree details, but is said to be by Condios and to have been bred in Co Waterford by John Widger out of a mare by Primary (while a wonderful service, it’s a shame Equipe doesn’t use dam names).

Most of the riders who competed in this class were adults, such as Leah Kent, who finished second in the league with Adamstown Boy (27), but the third-placed animal, an unraced four-year-old thoroughbred gelding by Gustav Klimt, was partnered by 12-year-old Lily Walsh.

Top score

It was New Ross veterinary physiotherapist Kent who topped the judges’ scores on Tuesday, with Katie Doyle’s Adamstown Boy (217.8 points), while Slater had to settle for second on Grantstown VIP (217.4).

The winning four-year-old gelding is by the thoroughbred stallion Hit The Diff, who stands at the Adamstown Stud of Walter and Abigail Kent (who are unrelated to the rider).

Like the league winner, Adamstown Boy’s breeding is unrecorded, but he was bred by Abigail out of an unregistered Connemara mare that her sons used to ride around the farm. He has a three-year-old full-sister, who has done very well in the show ring in England, while the Kents have retained his yearling colt full-brother.

Eva Melly finished third on Tuesday with the Connemara gelding Penure Rebel (217.1), a six-year-old grey by I Love You Melody.