IRISH show jumping development team manager Michael Blake got a pleasant surprize on the opening morning of the Dublin Horse Show when he was told by a certain Irish Horse World reporter that his son David had become engaged to his girlfriend, British show jumper Amanda Derbyshire.

Michael was enjoying his breakfast at the Intercontinental Hotel on Wednesday morning when Judith Faherty congratulated him on becoming a soon to be ‘father in-law’, to which she received a puzzled look from the Co Clare man.