MANY congratulations to Ravi Daly O’Toole who, for the second year running, won the Ward Union Hunt’s Junior Antler Challenge at Joey and Emma Moore’s Primrose Park, Greenogue, last Sunday.

The 14-year-old, who lives in Castletown, Co Wexford, but was representing the Wicklow Foxhounds, was on board the 15hh Donal Reidy-bred Ricardo Z mare Ricky who he hunts regularly during the season.

“Ravi is horse-mad and loves riding at speed,” reported the young rider’s father, Doran O’Toole, chairman of the Wicklow Foxhounds. “At the age of 10 he won his first open hunter trials. Since he was 12, he has been riding out at Peter Croke Racing, the operation based at the Glenealy yard of Maurice Sheehy.”

Ravi’s mother, Aisling Daly, has been involved in horses all her life while his siblings – Priya, Usha and Doran – love to hunt but don’t do as much these days with studies and other sports encroaching on their time.

Edie Codd bypassed her local point-to-point at Lingstown to head north to Primrose Park for this Junior Challenge in which the Killinick Harriers’ representative finished second on Hannah Wood’s Like A Dino. Earlier in the month, Codd and the seven-year-old bay gelding were jumping at the two-day Pony and Children on Horses’ spring tour in Cavan.

Ravi Daly O’Toole took the win in the Junior Antler Challenge 2024, having also won the junior section in 2023

Reward

While many of her Kingdom Pony Club teammates were in action at the North Kilkenny winter triathlon on Sunday, Chloe Mangan travelled up to Co Meath where she represented both her Branch and the North Kerry Harriers. Chloe, who attended the Irish Pony Club’s training day on the jockeys’ skills course at RACE (Racing Academy and Centre of Education) last September, was rewarded for her efforts when finishing third on Rio.

Representing the much more locally-based Ward Union Pony Club, Áilbhe Tormey, who finished 10th in this 28-runner competition, won the Treo Eile-sponsored prize for the top-placed thoroughbred horse on the day.

Áilbhe rode the family’s ex-racehorse Cobb And Co, a 2017 gelding by Camacho who last ran in June 2021. The grey was ridden in the 2023 Junior Challenge by Áilbhe’s sister Sadhbh who also competed him in last year’s Stepping Stones to Success league at Wexford Equestrian.

A gate-jumping competition, open to all, was held in addition to the main events. This attracted 10 starters but, in the end, came down to two riders, Susan Oakes and Aisling McGuinness.

Here riding astride, it was Oakes who came out on top when clearing 1.45m with Mr Muddy while McGuinness had to settle for second at 1.40m with her mother Hazel’s Cillbhrid Hank. The previous day, McGuinness and the nine-year-old Diamant de Semilly gelding had finished fourth in a 1.20m two-phase class at Killossery Lodge Stud.