WINNER of the younger Irish Draught class in 2017 and of the older section last August, both times landing the championship, Linda Murphy and Sean Barker’s home-bred stallion Gortfree Lakeside Lad were prevented by the rules from defending their title as a partnership last week.

Nevertheless, Murphy and the seven-year-old Gortfree Hero grey, who was fifth in the ID stallion class on Friday, managed to win a third championship in a row when claiming the working hunter crown in Ring 2 as the 2019 Dublin Horse Show came to an end on Sunday afternoon.

They progressed to the championship when winning the older over 83kg class from the seven-year-old Clover Brigade gelding Loughnatousa Cassius who was ridden for owner/breeder Tim Beecher by his son Paul. However, that bay was overlooked in the finale as the reserve sash went to the five and six-year-old lightweight class winner, MD’s One Two Many. This 2014 grey mare by Loch Cruise was ridden for Stacey Woolmington and Peter Dickenson by last year’s champion rider, Louise Lyons.

The opening four-year-old class was won by the Goresbridge Sales graduate, The Royal Dub, a black gelding by Royal Concorde out of a Puissance mare who was partnered by Rebecca Rafter for Joanne Quirke and jockey Gary Carroll who missed the class as he was riding in Tipperary.

Kevin Millman designed a different track for the afternoon’s two classes with the first of these, for seven to 10-year-old lightweights, being won by Dublin’s Rebecca O’Toole and her 10-year-old Lancelot mare Glenedens Lance-A-Little with whom she competes in EI100 (Amateur) classes and is due to do so tomorrow at Tattersalls.Second here were Dublin regulars Laura Kelly and her 2011 Kings Master gelding HL Marley And Me.

Thanks to the Equipe app, those ringside could keep track of the scores but it didn’t require an app to pick Gortfree Lakeside Lad out as the 2019 champion as the powerful seven-year-old, who is out of the Ginger Dick mare Springvale Rose, put up an unbeaten show in the final go-around.