Margie McLoone

RANDALSTOWN twins Laura and Rachel Smyth are heading back to Dublin next week with their 2016 sportsman (amateur hunter) champion Vantage Point who is produced for them by Richard Iggulden.

Bred in Crossmolina by Oliver Flanagan, the 14-year-old Le One gelding won the medium/heavyweight class last July under Laura who will be on the bay again this time around. He has also qualified for the ladies’ side-saddle class where he will be partnered by Andrea McKee.

Lyndsey O’Brien and her distinctive 14-year-old Olympic Lux gelding Mr Shakespeare (another entry in the side-saddle division) return to the sportsman ranks this year and will bid to regain the championship title they won in 2015 by first contesting the lightweight division.

While we are unaware of the complete composition of the class, one horse who will not be appearing in the Dublin ring next week is the 2014 champion, The Publisher, a regular participant at the show in recent years.

Reserve champion last July, Val Hyde’s Buster King gelding was about to make his seasonal re-appearance this year at Bandon when he was sold to England.

Slane exhibitor Jane Richardson returns with the second in last year’s class, her seven-year-old Irish Draught gelding Bright Like A Diamond (by KEC Bluejay Diamond) who showed his wellbeing recently when runner-up in the working hunter class for show hunters at Tattersalls.

At the same venue, Helena Hennessy Ruane’s seven-year-old Arthurs Gold gelding Cloneyhea Clancy finished third in the amateur ridden hunter section and he will once again contest the medium/heavyweight class in which he finished runner-up to the champion in 2016.