IT has taken Applejack a bit of time to record his first Eventing Ireland success but the seven-year-old did so last weekend in the Munster Region CNC1* national championship at Tattersalls where he completed, on his winning dressage score (27.6), under a delighted Emma Jackson.

“This is a hardy fellow,” said owner Jackie Harris of his Jacomar gelding, who he purchased as a three-year-old from his Banbridge breeder, Gordon Cowan. “If I get the right money for the horse I’d sell, but I wouldn’t mind pushing on with him a bit up the grades.”

Harris keeps the horse at home most of the time, hacking him out around the roads and doing faster work on the beach, and just sending him up to Jackson ahead of competition days.

Applejack is out of the Graf Magna mare Drumnagally Lady whose four-year-old daughter, Uptown Girl (by Amiro M), is a member of the Wallace/Wylie show horse team. It wasn’t surprising to see that the winner was home well inside the time as he just eats up the ground.

Sue Stewart (C) and Michael Moore (B) had only one other combination on a sub-30 score after dressage but, having show jumped clear, Ben Leahy and Philadelphia Freedom were one of four pairings to pick up jumping penalties at the first element of the water at nine, a MIM-pinned narrow rails.

Joseph Murphy had mixed luck with his two rides, having errors on both in dressage. The seven-year-old French Buffet gelding Grantstown Sensation, one of just four horses to record a double clear within the time, finished second (31) but the rider found himself very suddenly decanted, landing on his feet, when Ollie II, stopped at the second element of the double in the show jumping ring.

Siam Hawkes picked up 1.6 cross-country time penalties en route to placing third with Lady Baton Rouge (32.4), while Edel Nolan’s 2010 Ghareeb gelding Denis Finch Hatton finished fourth under Patrick Whelan (33.6). Following her fifth-place finish on her dressage score with the seven-year-old Master Piece (35.3), Jennifer Byrne hacked home – all the way across the road to Fairyhouse!