DUBLIN HORSE SHOW 2024 – SNAPSHOTS OF SUNDAY CHAMPIONS

Stroll In The Main Arena – Sportsman champion Mary Rothwell with Greenhall Stroll In the Park. © Susan Finnerty

There is no better place to view a batch of Dublin champions and no prouder occasion for their handlers than in Sunday’s pre-Grand Prix parade.


And the €500,000 Grand Prix itself turned into a thriller, plus had the added bonus of two Irish Sport Horses amongst the top-seven: runner-up GRS Lady Amaro (Amaretto D’Arco x Over The River), ridden by Mark McAuley, a nephew of the mare’s breeder Denis Hickey and seventh-placed HSH Los Angeles (Le Roi 10 x Cavalier Royale), bred by Marion Hughes and produced by Mikey Pender.


Saturday evening’s Sportsman championship for amateur-in-name producers and riders was another successful platform for Irish Draughts, as the champion was Wicklow schoolteacher Mary Rothwell’s Greenhall Stroll In The Park.

Champion Grey: Louise Lyons’ working hunter champion Clandeboye and Diarmuid Ryan aboard the reserve: Two Mile Nigel. © Susan Finnerty


By Millhollow Stroller and out of the Grosvenor Lad mare Benbo Hero, the big grey was bred by Padraig Fitzpatrick in Co. Leitrim. Reserve to him was Mary Deirdre Kinsella’s Tullyroan Cracker, bred on Irish Draught lines (Diamond Cracker. Breeder: Margaret Gilpin).


Equally happy under a side-saddle, Rothwell’s champion is a four-legged billboard for the temperament and easy-doer nature of the Irish Draught appeal for amateur owners.

Champion Grey: Louise Lyons’ working hunter champion Clandeboye and Diarmuid Ryan aboard the reserve: Two Mile Nigel. © Susan Finnerty


(And speaking of the popular side-saddle classes, both the intermediate side-saddle class winner: Anne Nixon & Leila Oakman’s purebred Connemara It’s Miller Time (Prince Of Thieves x Aran Flight. Breeder: Debbie Redahan) and second-placed Megan Connell’s Toberpatrick Ruby (Rosheen Yeats x Clover Park. Breeder: Douglas F. Byrne) are two more Dublin prizewinning examples of versatile native breeds).

Leading rider in this year’s Dublin show classes: Jamie Smyth on the supreme hunter champion Tattygare Me Me Me © Susan Finnerty


Also on parade were The Irish Field Breeders Championship and Coote Cup class prizewinners, as well as Jamie Smyth aboard the TopSpec supreme champion hunter Tattygare Me Me Me (Arkan x Iroko).
Smyth was amongst the Dublin Horse Show award winners, picking up the leading show rider prize, alongside West Cork owner Regina Daly, who won the leading exhibitor award and Belmont House Stud’s Andrea Etter, the leading breeder.

This year’s leading Dublin exhibitor? Regina Daly pictured with RDS President John Dardis © Susan Finnerty


On the other side of the soon-to-disappear Anglesea Stand, the Broodmare Futurity class was simultaneously taking place. Designed to earmark potential performance broodmares, the Futurity draws its contenders from the top fillies and mares throughout the week’s loose performance, four, five and six-year-old classes.


Jacques Verkerk, the well-known KWPN and sport horse inspector was pleased with the calibre of future broodmares, particularly their champion: Anne Marie O’Gorman’s home-bred Cutting Edge Too (Urano de Cartigny x Carthago), winner of the Flexible five-year-old championship with Shane Goggins.
“Cutting Edge Too became the convincing winner of the broodmare futurity class. As winner of the five-year-old national championship, she proved to be a superb jumper with a great technique and a real winner.


“Thereby she has an oustanding pedigree with a sire and dam that competed at the highest level and the damline produced multiple great horses. An upcoming superstar with a great future ahead in jumping and for sure in breeding,” predicted Verkerk, who was also full of praise the reserve.

Andreea Etter won the leading breeder award at Dublin Horse Show this year © Susan Finnerty


“Leestone Emeresky is a tall, well-developed, long-legged attractive mare with a modern type. She scored well with her pedigree with proven top-class sires Emerald and Cornet Obolensky in the first and second generation and out of a damline that proved itself with outstanding sporthorses. She jumped with great reflexes, moves with good reach and is very athletic.”


“Overall, eight mares with great potential and a class to be proud of,” he said in summary.
In the 2024 Dublin Horse Show championship, it was yet again the Irish Draught breed that shone in the working hunter championship.


This year’s champion is Louise Lyons’ Clandeboye, a pure-bred Draught by the Mexican export Scrapman and out of the Western Light mare, Libertias True Blue. Bred by Miriam Burney, the champion had won the earlier middle/heavyweight class.


Reserve went to another Irish Draught and working hunter specialist in Diarmuid Ryan with the eyecatching chesnut Two Mile Nigel (King Vinny – Two Mile Greta, by Penmerryls Rhythm And Blues. Breeder: Jerry McMahon), winner of the four-year-old class.


So that concludes the snapshots of Dublin showring champions (and characters too, such as the Claremorris-born farrier and Connemara fan James Balfe on an equine pilgrimage home from New South Wales).


Dublin entries often end up on shopping and wishlists and it certainly was a Horse Show Week in which native breeds shone in several championships. Until next year.