10th November 2001

Millstreet treble for Shane Carey

Having won two speed events earlier at the Millstreet Indoor Show last weekend, Lt. Shane Carey went one better on Sunday by scooping the Grand Prix and placing sixth as well.

The main event came down to a six horse jump - off and the young Limerick rider had two of them - Kilossory, drawn first to go and the John Henry mare Laughton's Last which was third out.

He took the lead with the mare and held on to win ahead of Francis Connors on the Cruising mare Cruisway and Tom Slattery on the stallion Coille Mor Hill.

Earlier at the show Slattery and Michael McKeigue's Coille Mor Hill won Saturday Night's main jump - off class. He and this very consistent stallion had also won the Clonshire Grand Prix in Adare on the holiday Monday . This and his Millstreet third now more than assures Tom an overall win in the Irish Field League, which ends this weekend at the Cavan Indoor International

Friday's speed event at the Green Glens arena went to Shane Breen on Cullohill Boy. The ever green Clover Hill mare Flo Jo won Friday night's 140m Class for Marion Hughes.

Shane Carey's double of speed wins came on Diamond Explosion. And also scoring a notable double of her own was Cork rider Hazel O'Callaghan who was twice second in main events with Noel C. Duggan's mare Millstreet Ruby who was again putting in a good performance on her home ground. But young army officer Carey was the star of the event with his great treble of wins - his best performance on home ground to date.

Over 700 entered for Mare Grant Scheme

Inspection of mares for £500 grant from the Irish Horse Board is well under way. A total of 740 dams have been entered and so far 240 of them have been looked at by the panel at venues around the country.

According to figures now available from IHB there has to date been a 50 per cent pass rate. All mares in the scheme must either be in foal or have a foal at foot by an Approved stallion.

Judged on conformation

At inspection they are judged on conformation, temperament, movement ect. A performance element is also built in.

If they haven't achieved a certain number of points in one of the equestrian disciplines they must then be loose jumped for the judges. Inspections continued this week at McGarry's in Sligo and at Claremorris.

This coming week they will be in Portlaoise and Kill. At the moment they are inspecting about 35 mares a day and hope to finish before Christmas

No SJAI election in Leinster

Different to all three other regions of the Show Jumping Association of Ireland, who elect their committees at AGM level, the Leinster Region has traditionally run a postal ballot for this purpose. However this year there was no surplus of candidates put forward and hence no election will take place this year. 

There are 22 seats on the region's committee and that is exactly the number of nominations that were received by the region's secretary Trish Collins by the closing date. The Leinster Region AGM is due to take place on Monday December 3 at 8 p.m in the Irish Farm Centre. Connaught is on December 9th in the Weston Hotel Claremorris at 5 p.m. and Northern Region meets on Tuesday December 4th in the Dungannon Rugby Club at 8 p.m. The Munster Region, which has a number of branches to cater for will not have results from its AGM until the New Year.