FORMER top National Hunt jockey Tony Dobbin was home in Downpatrick recently and, as can be read in Noel Mullins’s report, enjoyed a day’s hunting with the East Down Foxhounds.

Over the period under review, two horses with which Dobbin was closely associated were in the news, the first of them being the former Nicky Richards-trained Monet’s Garden who was crowed RoR Horse of the Year last Wednesday night.

Now 18 years of age and out of racing since landing the Old Roan Chase (Grade 2) for the third time in 2010, the William Delahunty-bred Roselier gelding won 17 races during his career, 13 under Dobbin. That baker’s dozen included the Grade 1 John Smith’s Melling Chase in 2007.

GLORY

In 2011, Monet’s Garden survived a life-threatening illness and has since gone on to glory in the show ring with his former trainer’s daughter Jo Richards in the saddle.

This year David Wesley Yates’s grey won at the Retraining of Racehorses national championship show at Aintree with his rider being five months pregnant at the time.

Other Irish-bred horses who received elite awards were the 17-year-old Prince of Birds mare I’m A Bird (show jumping), the 12-year-old Bold Fact mare Dancing Daisy (polo) and the 12-year-old Anshan gelding Beware Chalk Pit (showing).

Sadly, the death was announced this week, at the age of 28, of the New Zealand-bred gelding Lord Gyllene on whom Dobbin won the re-scheduled 1997 Aintree Grand National, making most of the running to score by 25 lengths.