COINCIDING with the pre-Grand Prix parade of champions, the group of interested onlookers at Ring 1 watched Sean Cubitt’s Rockwell RC win the Broodmare Futurity championship. Aimed at identifying broodmares with the potential to produce top show jumping progeny, the Futurity is confined to the top two fillies and mares from the loose performance, four, five and six-year-old classes.

Cubitt’s mare had already ticked the performance box in the five-year-old classes during the week. She got off to a good start in Simmonscourt, placing second in the opening class with Jason Foley and then finishing second in the Flexible final early on Sunday morning.

Bred in Co Carlow by Ronan Byrne, she is by Kannan out of the Guidam mare Urban Sea. Her family includes Sir Douglas 10, who was on the silver medal German team in the Children on Horses final at the 2016 European junior championships at Millstreet.

Joachim Winter and Marcel Beukers, who had also judged The Irish Field Breeders’ Championship, opted for Cathal McMunn and Jonathan Reape’s Jardy as their reserve champion, shortly after the KWPN-registered mare, by Arezzo, won the Flexible five-year-old final.

Ronan Tynan’s home-bred mare Be Aware took third place. By the late Pacino and out of the Cruising mare Well Aware, she had placed fifth in the Cruising six-year-old final with Vincent Byrne.