THE 155th Balmoral Show commences next Wednesday, May 15t,h and runs up to and including this day week, Saturday, May 18th, at Balmoral Park outside Lisburn.

There have been some well-flagged changes to the equine showing timetable since last year, while more were forced on the organisers when the entries closed last month. The timetable below includes these latest alterations.

The show jumping programme features six national competitions (for which competitors have to pre-qualify) and a similar number of two-star international competitions, the highlight of which will be Friday’s €30,000 Grand Prix. Hoping to defend the title he won last year on Esi Ali, Kilkenny’s Seamus Hughes Kennedy is among the expected 2024 line-up, alongside Co Tyrone’s Niamh McEvoy, who claimed the honours in 2022 with Templepatrick Welcome Limmerick.

Speaking on behalf of the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society, Business Development Executive Vickie White commented: “The international show jumping competitions are undoubtedly a highlight of the Balmoral Show. The Society increased its sponsorship of the prize-fund this year to ensure our athletes receive the recognition they deserve and to reward exceptional talent at this elite level.”

All show jumping will take place in the Main Arena, as will Wednesday evening’s judging of the Creightons small hunter championship, Thursday morning’s performance Irish Draught classes (which are now open to a restricted number of stallions) and championship, plus that afternoon’s Creightons supreme hunter championship.

While you just had to be quick on the draw to enter those sections of the show, horse and rider combinations had to qualify for the Balmoral Star of the Future performance horse championships. Sponsored this year by Pure Jump Ltd, these two classes – for five-year-olds only and six and seven-year-olds – will get the action under way in the Main Arena on Friday morning.

Restraint or roar?

The popular racehorse to riding horse class, sponsored by the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association, has been moved from Thursday to Friday, when it is due to start in the Main Arena at 5pm and this will be followed by the UMEX Pony Club games. If the riders in the first class would like the crowd to restrain from clapping and cheering, those involved in Pony Club games want all spectators to roar them on.

This goes also for the competitors in Saturday morning’s Botanica International amateur championship, which has an 8.30am start time, and, even more so, for the Bluegrass Horse Feeds schools’ team jumping team competition (10.45am) and the Under 10s championship. That last event, due off at 12.45pm, is being sponsored this year by Cian O’Connor’s Karlswood Stables.

All too often, the show champion of champions judging, which is scheduled for the Main Arena at 4.30pm on Saturday – directly after the spectacular cattle parade – goes ahead without a representative from the horse/pony section.

While it would be impossible to ring/text/message/contact everyone to find out who exactly has entered the showing classes at Balmoral, we do know that the major absentee from the Creightons hunters’ section, which ignites the action in Horse Ring 1 at 8am on Thursday, will be the powerful Bloomfield team of owner Daphne Tierney and rider Jane Bradbury. They plan to attend the show on foot, but won’t have their ridden hunters out until Gorey Agricultural Show on June 15th.

The horse showing section here will once again be the first leg of the Connolly’s Red Mills champion of champions showing series, which is run in collaboration with Showing Ireland.

Seamus Hughes Kennedy winning the Balmoral Grand Prix with Esi Ali in May 2023 \ Anne Hughes

Breeding classes

Given the time of year, the breeding stock classes in the P&O Arena at Balmoral on Wednesday morning are not usually that well-filled but the section’s staunch supporters include Co Wexford’s John Roche, who is definitely taking the road north next week to defend the broodmare title he won last May. In actual fact, Roche is going double-handed to secure this title for the fifth year in a row with last year’s winner, Assagart Faithfully, and the 2023 Dublin champion Assagart Fairytale. The locally-based Dessie Gibson is also bidding to repeat his youngstock championship success, with the now two-year-old gelding Spotlight, a grey son of Imnotafraid Fortuna.

It has been very disappointing to see the decreasing interest by breeders/exhibitors in the Ulster Bank Clydesdale classes at Balmoral, although we remain optimistic for the future, but the pony showing section continues to grow each year.

On Thursday, following the morning’s Connemara in-hand and ridden classes, two new ridden classes will be staged in the P&O arena for Mountain and Moorland ponies, one for small breeds and the other for large. Hopefully, there will be a large crowd on hand to enjoy the dressage display which follows; they can switch their attention between that and the Connemara working hunter classes in Horse Ring 1. Working hunter horses and ponies will take centre stage in the same ring on Friday and Saturday respectively.

While their fellow equidae are often shocked to see them, the donkey classes always attract the public’s attention and, this year, around lunchtime on Friday in the P&O Arena, the Lowe Rental-sponsored section will include a traditional working donkey class for mares and geldings, aged four and over, shown with farming implements.

There will be live steaming from different areas of the show over the four days.