WITH so much equestrian sport being impacted by the weather, it was great that the Co Limerick Hunt Branch of the Irish Pony Club was able to hold its Easter fun minimus and tetrathlon competition last weekend.

However, it required a lot of re-jigging on the part of the organisers to ensure the event went ahead – somewhat as scheduled. As originally advertised, the swim phase was to run from 8am to 11am on Sunday at the University of Limerick followed by the shoot (where applicable) after which the action would move to the Clonshire Equestrian Centre for the cross-country ride and run phases.

“Due to the weather, we gave people the option to ride Saturday or Sunday, so that we could accommodate all of our entries. At this stage we had decided to do arena eventing for the ride phase because of the going but, as an arena course runs much slower, we had to think outside the box to fit everyone in!,” commented the Branch’s DC, Emma Buckley.

“On Saturday, 42 children rode split between Minimus boys and girls, Junior boys and girls plus Senior boys and girls. On Sunday, we started in the UL pool at 8am. Everyone swam – Fledglings, Minimus, Juniors and Seniors. The Seniors and Juniors then shot in UL followed by the Minimus international squad.

“The remaining Seniors started their ride in Clonshire at 11.30am when the run started with the Juniors, followed by the Fledglings, Minimus and then Seniors. The last groups of runners had to face monsoon conditions! The Juniors followed the Senior ride at 12.45pm after which the rest of the Minimus rode to end our competition in the outdoor arena. Once the poor Fledglings has dried out after their run, their ride commenced in the indoor arena at 1.30pm.”

Senior boys

Ardagh-based Nathan Ruttle, who won the Senior boys’ class, was one of those who jumped on Saturday. “The organisers asked if anyone living locally would ride on Saturday evening to help take the pressure off the ride phase on Sunday,” said the successful competitor’s father, Liam Ruttle, a man of many hats in the world of showing.

Ruttle junior, who lost 10 points in the ride phase for a pole down (1,390 points), was fifth in the swim (987), fourth in the shoot (770) and third in the run (775) for a total of 3,922. He rode Rachaels Menlo Boy, an eight-year-old grey gelding who was purchased as a yearling in Clifden and was broken and first produced by Nathan’s sister Carol.

The ride passed to Nathan during Covid when the partnership contested the younger Connemara performance hunter championship at Lambertstown. They also compete in working hunter classes and Pony Club eventing. As he is in transition year, Nathan, who turns 16 this month, is training hard to make the Senior international tetrathlon team.

Second place in Sunday’s 11-strong class went to another Co Limerick member, Sean Alfred (3,867) who was joint first in the ride (1,400), won the swim (1,110), was second in the shoot (810) and eighth in the run (547). Also representing the hosts, Sonny McCartan finished third on a total of 3,762. The shoot phase was won on 840 points by Co Limerick’s Ben Buckley, one of three to go clear in the ride (the third was Tipperary’s Conor Hayes), while the Ward Union’s Jed Collins topped the scores in the run phase on 949.

Senior girls

Only six competitors started in the Senior girls’ competition where the honours, on a total of 3,824 points, narrowly went to Co Clare’s Grace Murphy who lost 10 points in the ride (1,390), won the shoot (830) and finished second in both the swim (928) and run (676) phases.

Two Duhallow representatives went clear in the ride phase for 1,400 points, Victoria Roche who finished second overall (3,822) having won the swim (1,088), finished third in the shoot (690) and fourth in the run (644), and fellow Ella Lombard who won the run (732), was second in the shoot (720) and third in the swim (920) to place over all third on 3,772.

Edward Healy Junior Boys winner at the Limerick Pony Club Easter Minimus and Tetrathlon competition \ Claire Nolan

Juniors

The Duhallows won both Junior competitions. In the 11-strong Boys’ division, Edward Healy claimed the spoils on 4,329 points ahead of Co Limerick’s J.J. Power (4,259) and Patrick O’Callaghan (4,232) of the Tipperary Branch. Caroline Roche fared best of the 17 starters in the girls’ class on 4,431 points, followed by Co Limerick’s Jane Moloney (4,322) and Duhallow’s Aoibhinn Turner (4,206).

In the three-phase Minimus competitions (no shoot), the 16-runner boys’ class was won by Harry Murphy representing Galway Mid County who notched up 3,312 points. Co Limerick’s Ethan Murphy slotted into second (3,196) with Tipperary’s Dave Hennessy placing third (3,132).

Co Limerick’s Grace Power had a rewarding day as she not only won the 30-strong girls’ Minimus competition on 3,634 points ahead of fellow clubmate Lucy Ryan (3,606) and Kilkenny’s Caroline Hughes (3,526), but she also claimed the honours in the mixed four-phase ‘international’ competition with 4,414 points. In this 11-runner event, Ryan was also second on 4,346 with Martha Buckley, another Co Limerick Branch member, third on 4,302.

Fledgling boys

The hosts also proved unbeatable in the 10-strong Fledgling boys’ class where George Kennedy topped the final leaderboard on 3,212 points, followed by his clubmate Sean Foster on 3,166. Charlie Gibbons of Galway Mid County finished third here on 3,076.

The honours were a bit more widely spread in the Fledging girls’ class where Katie Murphy struck for the North Kilkenny Branch with 3,050 points. Aisling O’Driscoll put in a strong performance to finish second for The Kingdom Pony Club (3,032) with Gemma Rose Walsh of the Kildare Branch placing third on 2,962.