Whelan dominates with a double

THE fourth and final qualifier for the performance horse championships at Balmoral Show was held on Tuesday at Wexford Equestrian where the judges were The Irish Field’s eventing and sales correspondent, Sally Parkyn, and her husband, Shaun.

The format gives the judges 25 points to allocate for show jumping, cross-country and gallop and these were divided up more or less evenly on Wednesday. Former National Hunt jockey Shaun had nine points to dispense for the gallop while Sally split the remaining 16 points between the two jumping phases. Points are then deducted by the scorers for fences down, refusals, etc and for being over, or under, the optimum time.

Apart from when the action had to be halted because of rain of Biblical proportions, the qualifier ran very smoothly with Orla Roche and Pat Peare being well-used to this type of competition which is run on similar lines to their Stepping Stones to Success League. In fact, many of the horses who competed in Wednesday’s qualifier had been campaigned through the Stepping Stones League earlier in the year including Alkadream who claimed the six-year-up and upwards class under his locally based owner, Patrick Whelan.

Winner also of the day’s Treo Eile-sponsored prize for the leading thoroughbred, this six-year-old gelding by Alkaadhem was bred in Co Wexford by Mary Doyle out of the Insan mare, Wind Venture. His only run in a point-to-point was at Lingstown (close to Wexford Equestrian) where he pulled up in a five-year-old geldings’ maiden in March 2020.

Alkadream has competed at five Eventing Ireland one-days this year, four times at EI100 level. As the bay is on the market, plans remain fluid but, if not sold, he will soon upgrade to EI110 company and may be entered in a one-star international before the end of the season.

Against her older rivals, the home-based Taylor Peare did well to qualify in second here with the Irish Sport Horse gelding WEC Imperial Master, the 2011 Askoll Peter Pan bay on whom the 16-year-old competes under Show Jumping Ireland rules, tackling 1.40m courses on occasion.

Whelan doubled up in the four- and five-year-old class on the eye-catching Stonehaven You Too who was having his first competitive start on Wednesday.

A 2017 son of Warrenstown You Too, this ISH bay was bred in Co Waterford by Vahe Bogossian out of the Iroko mare Ballinamonapark Honey. Here, Ciara Kinsella, another Stepping Stones stalwart, qualified in second with the home-bred ISH gelding Tykillen Typhoon. The Tyson bay is out of Lisdara Impish Lady (by Master Imp), a half-sister to the Touchdown gelding George (CSI4*).

As at each preceding round, four horses qualified for the championships on Wednesday with two others being classified as reserves. These could well be called upon in this instance as, on its 2021 date of September 22nd to 25th, the Balmoral Show clashes with Ballindenisk International (2).