SHOW CLASSES:CO WICKLOW breeder Daphne Tierney and rider Jane Bradbury combined to win the Goffs Country Property hunter championship in the main arena on Saturday morning with the Crosstown Dancer gelding Bloomfield Ollie.
The chestnut first had to secure the middleweight crown and he won this ahead of Vanessa Ramm’s Balmoral champion Quinto Real, a son of Silvano, which also stood second in their four-year-old class.
Also vying for the supreme honours was the five-year-old lightweight champion Bloomfield Basil, a Harlequin du Carel bay which represented the Tierney-Bradbury alliance but was ridden in the overall title decider by Kirsten Reid. The reserve here was Aaron McCusker’s Nash Me four-year-old Big Bucks, a former in-hand champion at the RDS.
Vanessa Ramm also had to settle for the reserve spot in the heavyweight division where her four-year-old Kings Master gelding Shantaram was beaten by Trevor Wallace’s Amiro M gelding Redemption Ground, partnered by Clare MacMahon.
With all the weight champions in the arena, the judges first had to pick their four-year-old winner and Bloomfield Ollie was called forward to pick up this accolade ahead of Big Bucks. The Wicklow horse was then beckoned into the top slot to take the supreme championship with Redemption Ground, rounding off a good week for his owner, being placed reserve. In an excellent result for the show, Rosemary Connors’s Woodfield Valier was crowned champion broodmare.
Brave Inca, winner of the inaugural racehorse to riding horse class at the RDS in 2009, made a triumphant return to the Dublin ring on Saturday. The now 13 year old had to miss the show last August with a slight injury but had no such hiccups this time.
The winner of 10 Grade One races on the track, the Good Thyne bay never put a foot wrong under Louise Walsh, girlfriend of the bay gelding’s owner, and former trainer, Colm Murphy. In a class where not all horses behaved as well, Brave Inca topped the line-up ahead of the recently-retired Mansony who was partnered by trainer Arthur Moore.
Yesterday, the showing action centred on the working hunter sector where Ashleigh Gault Murphy partnered her own Wexford Pimpernel to land the championship. The seven-year-old Kildalton King gelding recorded the only clear round in the over 13st class where he stood ahead of Lila Clancy’s Red River Rock.
The reserve champion was the four-year-old class winner Chorus, a bay Amiro M gelding ridden by PJ Casey and produced in north Co Dublin by Kieran Ryan for owner Dick McElligott.
Disappointingly, there was just one adult side-saddle class at the show, Co Monaghan veterinary surgeon Lisa O’Gorman landing the spoils on her own Errigal Flight gelding Dreamcatcher.