WATERFORD’s Emily Widger and husband Eamon Mackey have two sons, Eamon and Joe, who play hurling and two daughters, Emma and Hannah, who regularly feature in these pages as riders of very successful show ponies, competing both on the flat and in performance classes.

At the recent Irish Pony Society two-day championship show at Hollypark Stables, it was Hannah who fared much the better, concluding the two-day fixture with victory in the Orchard Equestrian diamond supreme championship of show on board The General. Standing reserve were Penny Twomey on the mini champion, Rookery Haribo, with Katie Wyse filling the second reserve slot on Leave It To You, the show hunter pony champion.

En route to the overall title, Hannah and The General won Sunday evening’s Mountain and Moorland championship and Saturday’s novice supreme championship. A 10-year-old Connemara gelding, The General was also crowned supreme Irish-bred pony of the show, here beating the elsewhere mentioned Brooklawn’s Beau’s Delight and Manor Marble. The Glencarrig Prince grey was bred in Co Galway by William Connolly out of the Rynn Richard mare Connemara Rose.

“We bought The General two years ago in England from Amy Canavan Smith,” revealed Emily Widger. “He was second in the ridden Connemara class for riders under 17 at the Dublin Horse Show for both last year and this. He was also overall reserve Connemara champion at this year’s Northern Ireland Festival in Cavan, where he was fourth in his only Horse of the Year Show qualifier.”

Hannah had a second string to her bow in the form of Ella’s Melody who, in a reversal of their earlier exceeding 138cm class, won Sunday’s open Mountain and Moorland working hunter championship, ahead of Lucy Kelly and the home-bred Connemara gelding Gypsy Junior, a strawberry roan 10-year-old by Coill Rua Champ out of Gypsy Rose (by Tulira Robuck).

Having won their 153cm working hunter pony class at the Royal International Horse Show in Hickstead in July, Hannah and Ella’s Melody were crowned champions, while they won their class at the Dublin Horse Show for the past two years. Another grey Connemara gelding, the 17-year-old Ella’s Melody is by I Love You Melody and was bred in Co Tipperary by John O’Malley out of the Windy Day mare Ella’s Glory.

Ensuring ponies and riders travel safely to and from shows, and doing any task asked of him at home and away, is Emily Widger’s father Joe, who is described by his daughter as “lorry driver, chief bottle washer and complete legend.”