IT was a case of third time lucky for Birdhill exhibitor Aideen Kirby who won the small event horse championship at the Dublin Horse Show on the home-bred Derg Masterpiece and, on Sunday, partnered the Lancelot mare to victory in the older lightweight working hunter class.

In the first competition, the Co Limerick combination went into the lead on Wednesday evening when receiving the highest marks (105.5 out of 140) for their performance over six 1.10m fences set at right angles which had to be negotiated in canter on/off 20 metre circles.

Their clear over a mixture of show jumps and cross-country fences in the Main Arena on Thursday morning garnered a combined assessment score of 12.33% (out of 15) from judges Lucinda Green, Leslie Law and Jason Webb and they won on a total of 88.71%.

Second place went to 16-year-old Carlow Pony Club member Megan Telford-Kelly on the seven-year-old gelding Mr Chocolate (87.13%) with Leila Barker finishing third (87.10%) on the similarly-aged Beach Ball gelding Ardeo Illusion who had topped the judges’ scores on 13%.

The latter pairing went marginally over the time but, importantly, they completed having suffered a crashing fall at the final fence last year.

Kirby, who finished second here last July, qualified early at Scarteen with Derg Masterpiece who has 58 Showjumping Ireland points and, in two EI100 starts this year, won at Millstreet in May and was second at Clyda (2) in June.

“I plan to compete Derg Masterpiece at one-star level in eventing,” said Kirby, who owns and bred the mare in partnership with her husband Owen. “She has such an amazing temperament that she does whatever I ask of her – eventing, show jumping or working hunter competitions.

“My father, Donal Murphy, who sadly passed away six weeks ago, sourced Show Piece, the dam of Derg Masterpiece, through the famous Philip Heenan 22 years ago and I competed her at the RDS before she was retired to stud. Dad would have been proud to see us with two wins this week.

“I’m so lucky to have the wonderful support of my family – my husband Owen and my daughters Aoife and Sorcha, who were acting as chief grooms and trainers last week – and we had a large group from the Limerick pony club to cheer us on also!”

Kirby is breeding out of a 2012 full-sister to the small but big-jumping Derg Masterpiece, Derg Show Biz, who is in foal to Womanizer.

Two riders who had disappointing results in the small event horse class were Linda Murphy, on last year’s winner Shirsheen Fun Size (14th), and Sharon Power who finished last of the 16 starters on the usually consistent SRS Mini Vendi.