Margie McLoone

THERE are few horses on the showing scene as readily identifiable as Lyndsey O’Brien’s Olympic Lux gelding Mr Shakespeare.

The 15-year-old near white grey has been entered by his owner/rider in the lightweight class of the sportsman (amateur rider) hunter section of next week’s Dublin Horse Show which will be judged in Ring One on Saturday evening by Hayden Hankey and Susan Rawding. Mr Shakespeare was sportsman champion in 2015 so it would be some achievement if he were to win again this year.

Carolyn Bermingham won last season’s lightweight class with her home-bred 10-year-old Porsch gelding Manderlay who went on to be reserve champion to the Crannagh Hero gelding Kilkarney Hero who topped the line-up in the heavyweight class under Orla McKevitt.

Around two dozen horses contested the sole amateur class at the recent Tattersalls July Show where Cheryl Whiteley won on her own Limmerick gelding, The Marksman. Connections will be hoping that the nine-year-old will have been out earlier on Saturday morning in the heavyweight hunter championship if he progresses from his class where he will be ridden by producer Lesley Webb.

Others who could appear in Dublin who were placed in Tattersalls are the 10-year-old Luidam mare Ard Love, who, Niamh McCullen, was third to Manderlay last August, Jennifer Kennedy’s Earl of Grenane and Lisa O’Gorman’s It’s After Eight. Yvonne Pearson seemed to enjoy riding her 16-year-old Ricardo Z gelding Double Take in the final of the Connolly’s Red Mills champion of champions series so hopefully she has the bay entered for next week.