THE second of five qualifiers for the Star of the Future championships at Balmoral Show (May 14th to 17th) was held last Sunday at Hazeldene Farm, Ballynahinch, where Laura and Andrew Napier ran the two classes in tandem with their own arena eventing competition.

There was plenty of interest in the qualifier with 23 entries in the five-year-old division and 20 in the class for six and seven-year-olds. That latter group included the Alyssa O’Neill-ridden Irish Sport Horse mare Dermish Coney, who claimed the five-year-old title in the Main Arena at Balmoral last May.

However, the Lancelot chesnut had an off-day on Sunday and her Co Kildare connections are now considering a trip up to Gransha next Saturday, March 29th, or holding fire until the final qualifier at Lusk’s the following weekend (Sunday, April 6th). O’Neill has qualified one horse, Knockalla, for the five-year-old show jumping championship and hopes to return to Balmoral with DS Candescent on whom, in third, she had the highest-placed six-year-old in the six and seven-year-old championship last May.

O’Neill and that Sligo Candy Boy bay are entered in the EI110 class today at Tyrella, where the Northern Region is getting the 2025 Eventing Ireland season underway. Among those listed in the EI100 (J) class at the Corbett family’s seaside venue is Dungannon’s Eimhear Donaghy with her father James’s TMS Freedom, who topped judge Carol Prime’s leaderboard last Sunday on 79 marks.

This seven-year-old bay ISH mare by Je t’Aime Flamenco, who was placed on all four of her EI100 (J) outings last season, was bred in Co Antrim by Tanya Smith, out of the Harlequin du Carel mare Kilmastulla Harlys Diamond.

Gwen Scott qualified Tattygare Me Me Me in the Balmoral Star of the Future Five-year-old qualifier at Hazeldene on Sunday \ JRS Photography

The other qualifiers from this six and seven-year-old class were David O’Connor with the ISH mare Desdemona (78), a 2019 bay daughter of Cormint, and Caitlin Woods with the ISH gelding Greygrove Delight (77), a Shannondale Sarco St Ghyvan six-year-old, who is also entered in the EI100 (J) today.

Shirley and Adrian Hurst’s home-bred ISH mare Tattygare Me Me Me, who was ridden by Gwen Scott, shared top billing on 83 marks in Sunday’s five-year-old qualifier with David Kirkpatrick’s traditionally-bred ISH gelding Redwood Sky, who was partnered by Jim Newsam.

The Arkan mare Tattygare Me Me Me, who was crowned supreme hunter champion in the Main Arena at the Dublin Horse Show last August and has 31 Showjumping Ireland points to her credit, is out of the Iroko mare LCC Yoko and thus is a full-sister of Leamore After Hours (CCI3*-S).

The Cougar gelding Redwood Sky, who is entered with Newsam in today’s EI90 at Tyrella, was bred by Co Carlow’s Thomas Donegan out of the Ghareeb mare Kilcoltrim Kitten, dam previously of the Waldo Van Dungen mare Kilcoltrim Kit Kat (CCI4*-L).

Also heading to Tyrella today for the EI90 is Grace O’Shaughnessy’s home-bred ISH mare Ravanny Hope who, with 81 marks, claimed the third qualifying slot on Sunday under Colin Halliday. From the second crop of last year’s Croker Cup winner Lucarelli, the bay is out of the Beach Ball mare Annaghmore Aldo Beach.