THE Ward Union held their annual Children’s Halloween Hunt on Bank Holiday Monday in Rathmoylan from where they split into two groups.

Those able to ride on their own, 35 of them, went off with the hounds, huntsman Darren Campbell, one of the four joint-Masters Stephen O’Connor and young event horse producer John Bannon, who was elected on to the hunt committee this season.

They were out for about two hours with hounds following a drag laid by flat jockey Gary Carroll and fellow Ward subscriber Colm Kiernan. Among this group was young Sean Carberry, whose father Timmy is in his second season as one of the joint-Masters.

The second group of 27 children on lead reins went into Nenthorne Farm, where Gary Carroll and his wife Joanne Quirke, the show horse rider/producer and coach, had them going through trees, down little drops and over a very low course of fences set around one of the fields. As her husband was laying the drag for the older children, Joanne had charge of the couple’s daughter Annabelle while Gary’s father Raymond, a very fit former flat jockey, led their son Max.

Family affair

Another joint-Master, Gerry Reynolds, followed this group on foot as his granddaughter Molly Reynolds was riding with the leading duties shared between her parents, Peter and his veterinary surgeon wife Sarah Jane. Hunt secretary Jill Carberry led one of her two grandchildren, Phoebe and Ethan Hague, while her daughter, their mother Megan, led the other.

Megan would much rather ride, but she is recovering from surgery on an old injury suffered during her days as a jockey. Back doing school runs while Megan was side-lined, Jill was looking forward to the mid-term break!

Former Co Down huntsman turned racehorse trainer, Ian Donoghue and his wife Alana were among the parents in the lead rein group, with their well-turned-out children Harley and Theo. Saddling two very small ponies on Monday was a bit of a change for Ian who, two days earlier, had saddled his first winner at Cheltenham when Matt Rogers’s Lisnamult Lad won the opening handicap chase under British jockey Sean Bowen. The seven-year-old Court Cave gelding was bred by another hunting man in Kildare’s Peter Deane.

The lead rein group didn’t stay out too long, which was a relief to those on foot, while the children were delighted to get back to Rathmoylan, as there was a bouncy castle in the indoor school, which had been left in place following Annabelle Carroll’s birthday party on Saturday. She was five.