Main Line, a son of former international star Cruising and full brother to international show jumpers Cruiseline and Point Blank, was a convincing winner of the final qualifier for the Dundrum four-year-old championship in Simmonscourt yesterday for owner and breeder James McEvoy.
This was certainly a more encouraging result for Irish breeders than Wednesday's qualifier where two Dutch-bred youngsters, Ard VDL Douglas and Nakano RB, dominated the top two places. Another Dutch-bred, Paul Devlin's Rio, had finished well down the line on Wednesday but remarkably pulled right up the ranks on his second outing to score 104.67 and take a temporary lead.
However, the home-breds, which had taken time to settle into their new surroundings at Simmonscourt earlier in the week, appeared much more relaxed and two by the Irish sport horse Cruising and one by the deceased sire Cavalier remained in the top five before an overall score count.
James McEvoy's Main Line, described by judge Harold Lusk as "very promising", scored 111.67 points, and Judy Murphy's home-bred Java Keltic Son, by Cavalier and out of the former showjumper Celtic Tiger, was tying for second with Paul Devlin's Rio on a score of 104.67 to guarantee their places in the final.
John Rea's Comar Cruise was also in the hunt for a place in the final and Conor Swail gave the son of Cruising a confident and relaxed ride to improve his original score of 91.33 to an even more impressive 104.33 in the second for an overall tally of 195.66.
Swail's accumulated score was good enough for second place after both qualifiers, but James McEvoy's Main Line had also performed well up to par on his second outing and, having provided a very clean round of jumping, swept the boards to score 111.67 and go into the lead on an overall total of 198.67. While the four-year-old qualifier went ahead without any difficulties, both the young riders' 1.35 metre qualifier and the six and seven-year-old qualifiers were postponed and are due to go ahead in Simmonscourt this afternoon.