Joe Hamilton Wins Open Mid Antrim Hunter Trials Event

On Saturday 25th October there was a hive of activity at the Hamilton’s farm near Broughshane, where the Mid Antrim Hunt held their Hunter Trials. Joe Hamilton and his team, which included his brother Bob, Ricky Waide and Jamie Sloan, had been working very hard indeed in the weeks before and Joe should be very proud of his achievement in building such a challenging yet safe course. There were classes for Novice Singles, Novice Pairs and Open Singles. Although some of the competitors opted for the Novice instead of the Open after walking the course, the scarier looking fences proved to be merely rider frighteners, and the horses and ponies weren’t worried, so there were very few problems during the day. The daunting drop, Andy’s Leap, had a new Novice version which was very well built with a good take off and landing and everyone negotiated this fence successfully. The comments from the competitors afterwards said it all: “A challenging, excellently put together course”; “Great fun over a great course”; “Course fantastic, will definitely be back next year”; and people certainly appreciated so many natural hunting fences. It was a good old-fashioned Hunter Trials and in spite of so much going on that day, it attracted reasonable entries. The competitors were judged on optimum course times except in the pairs where there was an additional category for speed. One of the early pairs was Master Gordon Cunningham and his grandson Luke, and it was a proud grandfather who finished the course with young Luke close behind. The intrepid young Brigid Delargy was first in the Novice proving that size isn’t everything and was just close enough to the optimum time to beat Jamie Sloan on the hunt horse Monty. Joe Hamilton was 3rd on Richard Cowan’s Jack Daniels.

The pairs competition threw up interesting results with Hannah Thompson and Kirsten Thom fairly going for it with an extremely fast time just ahead of Erin Dunseath and Orla O’Kane. Jamie Sloan and Fiona Magill got the time spot on for the optimum, ahead of Saoirse McLaughlin on her sister’s horse Flynn and Sophie Harkness. Saoirse then changed horses on to her grey Herbie to join her sister Orla in clocking up third place in the optimum time category.

There were not many entries in the Open with Joe Hamilton nearest the Optimum time on Davy Crawford’s talented horse King of Diamonds, followed by Jamie Sloan who obviously took it steady this time on his speed machine Callie. Third was Gemma Goodrich on her very attractive grey, Ole. Gia Traynor had a lovely round but put herself out of the ribbons by opting for the smaller version of Andy’s Leap. She tackled everything else on the Open course with her horse Loughshannagh Lad going beautifully. The smiles on the competitors’ faces as they finished were a testament to the fun they’d had over an excellent course.