IT was a good day for former track performers at last Sunday’s Racehorse to Riding Horse Christmas Show held at Lessans Livery Yard where, belying its name, the majority of classes were open to all breeds and all types.

In the racehorse, the champion was Noel Callaghan’s Hugo de Vindecy who won the open class en route to landing the title.

Ridden as usual by his owner, who was presented with the Geoffrey Ruddock Cup by Julie Edgar Morris of Racehorse to Riding Horse Ireland, the former Jessica Harrington-trained bay is a 15-year-old Robin des Champs gelding who won a bumper and two hurdles races in just eight starts.

In the open class and championship, Hugo de Vindecy stood ahead of the Oisin McCann-ridden Miller And Cook who otherwise had a very successful show as the eight-year-old Oratorio gelding won both the hunter and riding horse classes, the showing championship and, at the end of the day, the supreme championship. Miller And Cook, who last ran in August 2017, failed to win or be placed in six starts on the flat for Mark McNiff.

The reserve supreme was Julie Donaghy Simpson’s Hes The Lad. The 10-year-old bay gelding, who is best known as a working hunter, was second in both the riding horse and ridden hunter class.

In the racehorse to riding horse section, judge Maria Kelly’s winner of the retaining class was the Mary Hamill Booth-ridden Don Franco. Another by Oratorio, this nine-year-old was bred by Tilly Conway in whose colours he won a handicap hurdle at Tipperary in May 2015 when trained by Jim Dreaper. He also won two handicap chases in the summer of 2017 when trained for the Downinmeath Syndicate by Stuart Crawford for whom he had his final start in August that year.

The show organisers are indebted to overall sponsor Geoffrey Ruddock and to Comfort Gut who supplied extra prizes.

Among the pooches at the dog show was the puppy Buzz who travelled over from Co Donegal with Oisin McCann.