THE world of show hunters in Ireland was shaken last Saturday as British raider Mossy was crowned TopSpec champion heavyweight and then supreme champion of the Dublin Horse Show.

The six-year-old Watermill Swatch gelding, who was bred in Co Clare by Tim and Margaret Kelly, was one of three horses listed in the catalogue under the Irish address of English owner Trudi Deja although he is produced for her, on a farm near Hickstead, by Helen Baker.

Deja was in mixed mood following the grey’s success. “I’m thrilled to have won of course but it’s a great pity that Paddy Downes, who was with me when we spotted this horse as a two-year-old in a field of cows, passed away last February. He always wanted a heavyweight to show here. This is a good, big traditional Irish horse who needed the big ring to show himself off.”

While Deja was talking of bringing the champion down to Clare, Baker was hoping that he would return to England to show but that would be as middleweight – as he had been in his three previous outings this term.

“He is a lovely horse to ride and likes to gallop,” said Baker. “He’s a big horse but rides like a giant hack and is a lovely horse to do!”

Helping the visiting team out over the week was Downes’s son Patrick, who is keeping his eye out for another horse for Deja, agreeing with her that they are hard to source. “Finding them is all the fun,” said the owner.

En route to the Main Arena, Mossy first won Friday morning’s older heavyweight class ahead of the 2011 Glid Uibhaill gelding Shanbally Huntsman who was ridden for Craughwell’s Tom McNamara by his daughter Maria.

Also sent through by judges Jon Trice-Rolph and Richard Mills to Saturday’s championship were Daphne Tierney’s Puissance gelding Bloomfield Badger (Jane Bradbury) and Lyndsey Wylie’s Musical Pursuit gelding Hot Pursuit who were first and second in the four-year-old class.

The five-year-old heavyweights who caught the judges’ eyes on Friday were Rosemary Connors’s owner-ridden Cruise Diamond gelding Woodfield Rapture, who stood reserve champion heavyweight, and Glenn Knipe’s Irish Draught gelding Farmhill Fuerty Emperor (by Welcome Emperor).

LEADING EXHIBITOR

After a season in which little went wrong for Co Wicklow owner Daphne Tierney and rider/producer Jane Bradbury, they had a rather disappointing Dublin by their standards.

However, Tierney was once again leading exhibitor as they still managed to bag the middleweight championship with Bloomfield Bespoke.

Bred in Co Clare by James Nash out of the Prospect Pride mare Malibu On Ice, the Future Trend grey won Friday’s five-year-old gelding class with Maria McNamara again having to settle for second, this time with her own Offaly Clover chesnut, Shanbally Action Man.

The middleweights were judged by a newcomer to Dublin, Samantha Boxall (who surprised onlookers and riders by using a neckstrap in Ring 2 but not in the Main Arena), and the popular regular visitor Guy Landau.

Last year’s champion mare, the Rothwell family’s home-bred Crosstown Dancer bay Greenhall Wishing Well returned to Dublin but faltered at the first hurdle when, partnered by P.J. Casey, she could only finish second in the mares’ class.

Here, the winner was the Russel grey Brownstown Moves Like Jagger, a six-year-old ridden by Angeline Carey for her breeders, the Draper family from Co Kildare.

Riding his own The Kings Court (by Radolin), Casey also had to settle for the runner-up spot in the four-year-old geldings’ class behind Dick McElligott’s Pushkin.

Ridden by Claire Gilna and produced by Kieran Ryan, this Womanizer grey, who went on to be reserve champion middleweight, was bred in Co Galway by John Murphy out of a Coevers Diamond Boy mare.

Going through to Saturday’s championship from the older geldings’ class were Ann Callanan’s six-year-old Kroongraaf bay Ruthstown Classic (Melanie Horsman) and Clare Connors’s owner-ridden year-older Harlequin du Carel bay Rehy I Am A Star.

LIGHTWEIGHTS

On Thursday, a lot of the lightweights were on their toes and a number ‘got gate’ including three of the nine starters in the five-year-old geldings’ class.

This was won by Daphne Tierney’s Bloomfield Kylemore (Jane Bradbury), a home-bred grey by Financial Reward, while Jessica Whitney moved up from third to second with her Cappa Cassanova grey, Edenagor Paddy.

Action was halted in the preceding four-year-old mares’ class as the medical personnel attended to Kirstine Douglas who judged the lightweights with Sara Leatherbrrow.

Douglas had fallen to the ground when dismounting from one of the entries and, having suffered a broken foot, had to sit out the remainder of the week, with referee judge Danielle Heath, another first time judge at Dublin, stepping into the breech.

The class was won by the P.J. Casey-ridden Greenhall Push Button, a Financial Reward bay owned by breeder Derry Rothwell with Lesley Webb finishing second on Yvonne Pearson’s Munther bay Kief Queen B, this pair being judged champion and reserve champion mares on Saturday.

Webb also rode the winner of the older mares’ class, Emily McGowan’s six-year-old roan daughter of Loch Cruise, EMS Richeals Pet, with a delighted Imelda O’Donnell moving right up to second with her eight-year-old chesnut daughter of Kings Master, Miss Nell Gwyn.

One of the few male riders in the show classes, Aidan Ryan partnered his home-bred six-year-old Mr Clover bay Cluainpeata into second place in the opening older lightweight geldings’ class where Lyndsey Wylie always topped the line-up on her father Trevor Wallace’s 2010 liver chesnut Harlequin du Carel gelding Front Line.

Well-covered elsewhere on this page, Kieran Ryan won the four-year-old geldings’ class on Maria Melvin’s home-bred Crosstown Dancer gelding Glenkeeran Dance Inthedeep, who always topped the line-up, first ahead of Daphne Tierney’s Watermill Swatch grey Bloomfield Waterfall and, in the end, ahead of Strictly Takes Two, a Financial Reward gelding ridden and produced for his Limavady owners, Laura and Elaine Haslett.

Glenkeeran Dance Inthedeep, who has a most wonderful outlook, had plenty of supporters in the stand who were delighted to see him first claim the lightweight crown ahead of Front Line and then take the four-year-old title ahead of his short-time stable-companion, Pushkin.

Both Glenkeeran Dance Inthedeep and Mossy performed well under their own riders and rode well for the judges in the Main Arena and it was obvious to those in the stands that these were the pair that Guy Landau, Jon Trice-Rolph and Danielle Heath were concentrating on in the final stages of their judging.

They eventually came down in favour of the Helen Baker-ridden Mossy, leaving Kieran Ryan to ride into the reserve spot with Glenkeeran Dance Inthedeep.

“It was a very close decision as they were both two lovely horses,” commented Landau. “Both could gallop but we brought it down to basics and decided that, if we were selling them as hunters, we would ask more for the heavyweight as they are harder to find.”