THE Kildare/North Leinster Area of the Irish Pony Society held its annual show last Wednesday week, running in tandem with day two of the Tattersalls Ireland July Show in aid of St Francis Hospice.

The organisers’ concerns that a mid-week date would have a negative effect on the number of entries looked justified seven days before the fixture. However, despite the appalling weather on Tuesday, a better forecast for Wednesday saw over 170 ponies being transported to the sales company’s popular Co Meath venue and the final figures revealed that there were roughly 350 entries.

It proved a long day for show secretary Rena Rawluk and her small committee who were on site at 7am and didn’t leave until after 8.30pm, and Will Derham, who took a day’s holiday to man the commentator’s microphone. One of the duties of show co-ordinator Daniel Rawluk was to ferry people from the lorry parks and stableyard to the IPS rings as ground conditions prevented some of the heavier lorries accessing that area.

In addition to the usual 18 championships, the mini supreme championship and the supreme championship of show, there was the inaugural supreme working hunter championship for the Anna Byrne Perpetual Trophy.

This trophy was donated by the KNL Area, of which Anna had been a long time member, and the championship was augmented by a bursary of €500 donated by the Byrne family whose home lies just across the road from Tattersalls.

Four ponies, the open and novice champions and reserves – Who’s Jardan B (Lucy Doyle), Lookout Bundaburg (Alisha Vard), Fiery Diplomat (Aoife Flynn) and Hogan The Brave (Abigail Kenny) – jumped a set of three fences and finished with an extension before judges Denise Colebrook, Mary Moore and Faith Ponsonby – due to the late hour the British judges had left for their flight home.

In front of an emotional gathering of Anna’s family and friends, the new trophy was awarded to Dalkey’s Alisha Vard on board her mother Yvonne’s Connemara gelding Lookout Bundaburg, a six-year-old grey by Mirahs Oyster Bandit out Shankeela Star (by Frederiksminde Hazy Match) who was bred in Co Wicklow by Clive Nuzum.

“I am so delighted with this win,” said 17-year-old Alisha who was recently selected for the Irish squad heading to the international working hunter pony competition in Scotland early next month with another Connemara gelding, Galtee Donald. “Anna was someone I looked up to as a great rider when I was younger. It’s a real honour to be the first name on her trophy.”

Regarding Lookout Bundaburg, Yvonne commented: “He’s a very exciting prospect with a natural jump and so much scope. We’re going slowly with him to give him time to develop so we’ve been selective with what he does but, on every outing, he’s done so well. He coped really well with the earlier working hunter track (built by Alan Lynch) which was quite technical and challenging and, as is typical at Tatts, included skinnies and a bank which you don’t usually see.”

At Killossery Lodge Stud earlier this month, Lookout Bundaburg won the 158cms league and final of the IPS Sports Pony Challenge.

En route to supreme success at Tattersalls, Vard and Lookout Bundaburg won their open 153cms working hunter class before standing reserve in the section championship to the Lucy Doyle-ridden Who’s Jardan B.

The latter, an 18-year-old Dutch-bred gelding, had finished second in the 143cms class to the Evie Kennedy-partnered Connemara gelding Little Dromin Phoenix.

Nancy Lyons Teehan, who won the 133cms class here on her mother Louise’s Tybroughney Cloud, went on to land two championships. She claimed the overall honours in the overall Mountain and Moorland section on board the 128cms class winner, the British-bred Downland Escort, a nine-year-old Welsh Section B gelding by Millwood Ecuador, and the mini working hunter section on the cradle stakes winner, the 13-year-old Cwmmawr Echo mare Tynffrwd Carys.

The only poorly-supported section on the day was that for breeding and youngstock where the Lambay Stud champion was Noel Noonan’s well-known Connemara stallion Manor Duke, a 12-year-old son of Currachmore Cashel.