IT was around 8pm when the final judging took place at the Irish Pony Society’s Kildare/North Leinster Area show at Tattersalls Ireland last Wednesday week but the wait proved well worthwhile for Co Tipperary’s Aoife Flynn and her mother Rachel as their Fiery Diplomat was crowned supreme champion of the show.

An 11-year-old grey gelding by Gleann Rua Maxwell, Fiery Diplomat was bred in Co Kildare by Harriet Byrne out of her Gun Smoke mare, Magic Minnie. Aoife and Fiery Diplomat won the IPS’s overall Connemara award last season having won at Balmoral, Dublin and Clifden. They have once again qualified for the Under 16 ridden Connemara class at the RDS and have recorded two championship successes on the county circuit.

Aoife (15), who is coached by Terry Cairns, David Maher and her mother, competed in a training event at Rosanna House in Co Wicklow on Fiery Diplomat whose route to supreme championship success at Tattersalls saw him win his novice 153cms working hunter class and the Gotu Trailers novice working hunter championship. The combination also landed the under 16 class in the Connemara section where the title went to the over 16s winners, Sadhbh O’Connor on Hillside Rebel, a six-year-old grey by Monaghanstown Prince.

There was great excitement among family members and supporters when beckoned into the reserve supreme slot was Co Cork seven-year-old Finn Russell and the starter stakes champion Four Fabulous Feet. The 24-year-old 128cms gelding, who was first show jumped by various members of the Widger family and, more recently, by Finn’s sister Lily, is owned by the pair’s father Davy Russell, the former three-time champion National Hunt jockey.

Among Russell’s many great wins were two successive victories in the Aintree Grand National on Tiger Roll, a horse Finn himself had the pleasure of riding when he was just four years of age.