Irish team stalwarts Eddie Macken and Peter Charles fought their first battle on Ballsbridge turf yesterday morning even before the international showjumping programme at the Kerrygold Horse Show got under way, with Macken claiming the national curtain-raiser by a short head.
The pair were among six riders to negotiate successfully the first-round track for the Chestnut Ridge Farm Grade A class, and they made all the running against the clock.
Cookstown rider Neil Turkington, a former student of Macken's, posted the first zero score of the timed round with Ingrave Chance, setting the standard at 44.68. But Hampshire-based Charles responded immediately with a corner-cutting clear from his chestnut mare, Dolly, which brought them across the finish line in 36.70.
Macken's mount, FAN La Bamba, had been a winner twice on the national circuit last weekend, and the 14-year-old mare was primed for another taste of victory. An ambitious turn to the penultimate oxer almost ended Macken's hopes of an opening day win, but even though the mare connected with the back rail, it stayed in place and they flashed through the finish flags in the winning time of 36.15.
Macken's grasp of the first RDS ribbon of the week weakened temporarily when Antrim rider Linda Courtney galloped Cloverdale Boy to the final upright en route to the fastest round of the day. However, Courtney's time of 33.62 was invalidated when the top rail hit the turf, a mistake which dropped her to fourth in the final reckoning.
Jack Doyle, trainer of the junior team that took bronze medals at the European championships in Lisbon last month, was back in the saddle to ride Rachel Counihan's Little Rock Amber to win the first of the four-year-old jumping classes in the Simmonscourt arena yesterday.
The chestnut Errigal Flight gelding which was highly rated by the three foreign judges - Umberto Lupinetti (Italy), Jean-Paul Musette (Belgium) and Paul Kogg (Switzerland) - came back into work only recently after a spell at grass, but was rated by his rider as being brave enough to take on the RDS challenge without too much preparation.
Both Ramiro B, owned and ridden by Maurice Cousins, and Ricardo Z, the mount of Francis Connors, finished on 80.66 when the three judges' marks were averaged, with the blue ribbon going to Ramiro B in the final analysis. Maeve O'Neill's home-bred Lismore Clover, a finalist in the four-year-old championship at the recent Millstreet international meeting, filled fourth position.
In the Ann Smurfit Bloodstock 128cms class yesterday morning Lisburn's Karin Anne McCoubrey carried off a rare RDS double when winning with Show Me Heaven and taking second place with Well Dun in a 12-pony jump-off.
Jo Anne Waterson maintained the Northern Ireland exhibitors' strike rate when winning the 138cms division with A Step In Time, while Sara Kate Quinlivan brought Cork into the reckoning when heading the 148cms class with Clover Riot.