Margie McLoone

THE fourth and last qualifier for next month’s Knott’s Bakery young event horse classes at Balmoral show were held on Tuesday at The Meadows where the sun appeared at times to challenge the strong winds and intermittent hail showers.

Aaron McCusker was course builder for this round of the series and the judges were Angeline Nicholson (dressage), John Reid (in-hand) and Tom Doherty (jumping) whose combined scores, in both classes, were headed by horses ridden by Colin Halliday.

Winner of the four-year-old division was the Luidam mare Lucidam who is owned by her Kilcurry, Co Louth breeder Orlagh Kelly. The bay, who is out of Lux Valley (by Olympic Lux), scored highest (35% out of 45) in the jumping phase from the 11 starters for a completion score of 71.33.

Beverley Caves finished second on 70.92 with Quick Smart, an OBOS Quality 004 gelding out of a Tobar Dubh mare, and fourth on the Ricardo Z gelding Ricardo Flight (68.75) whose dam is by Stormhill Miller. Caves purchased the pair at Goresbridge last September.

Steven Smith was narrowly beaten into third on Handsome Starr (70.83). Registered with Weatherbys, this bay gelding is by the thoroughbred stallion September Storm who stands outside Loughbrickland at Gail and John Kidd’s Ballyash Stud.

“I like this horse a lot but he’s a longterm project,” said Smith. “I hadn’t expected him to qualify last week but he did, and this week he was good as well. Balmoral may be too much for him but he can go along for the experience.”

Halliday’s successful partner in the five-year-old class was Sandra Hamilton’s Graf Mesmeric who will soon be seen out on the eventing scene. This was the brown gelding’s second start in a Balmoral qualifier while he also competed in one leg of the Stepping Stones league.

Graf Mesmeric is a son of Mermus R out of the Limmerick mare Graf Landlady whose 2009 filly, Graf Balouprint, represented the Irish Sport Horse Studbook at Lanaken in 2014. He was bred in Co Down by Brian Livingstone. As in the earlier class, Halliday ensured victory by gaining most marks in the jumping phase to win the 19-runner class on a total of 77.17%.

Steven Smith had three rides in this section and finished second and third with Winchester (76.50) and Ballyartan Contessa (75.42) respectively.

MiMi Falb’s Winchester, a flashy chesnut gelding by Womanizer, was bred in Co Cavan by David Trenier out of the Hermes de Reve mare My Cavan Lady. He had already qualified for the Balmoral final when third at Gransha the previous Tuesday.

The Smiths are producing the Condios mare Ballyartan Contessa for Ann-Marie Hughes of Ballyartan Stables in Derry.

Trevor Smith was also in action at The Meadows and he came fourth on the Ghareeb great Dream Catcher (72.42) who the brothers bought last year.

Catherine Robinson is also set to be busy at Balmoral as she qualified another horse for the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society’s annual show on Tuesday in the fifth-placed Max Faktor (72.25) who is owned by her breeders Donal Galvin (Ballinasloe) and Rachael Hazlett (England).

The Anglo European-registered mare, the first-home bred for the owners, is by Pop Idol (who is by Whinny Jackson out of Burgraaf mare) out of Ardagh Maxi (by Maximum Clearance).

Twenty four-year-olds and a similar number of five-year-olds have now qualified for Balmoral where the jumping phase of the competition takes place on the Thursday of the show (May 12th) in the Main Arena. Horses will compete over a course of 16 fences, designed and built by Adrienne Stuart, which will include show jumps, rustic fences and portable cross-country obstacles.

Stepping Stones FINAL

DISAPPOINTINGLY for Orla Roche, who had been encouraged to move some of the Stepping Stones to Success League qualifiers away from Wexford Equestrian this year, the exercise did not work out and Wednesday’s scheduled leg at Lusk Equestrian was cancelled on Monday morning due to insufficient entries. The Stepping Stones final takes place on Tuesday next, May 3rd, and competitors are reminded that entries close this evening at 8pm.

Following the first three legs, Margaret Jeffares’s Ballykelly Notalot tops the leaderboard in the Botanica International four-year-old league ahead of Emma Jackson’s Carra Lux Quality while in the Shires Equestrian Products five-year-old division, Alice Kehoe’s locally-bred Westwinds Navigator is lying second to his stable-companion in Sarah Ennis’s Co Meath yard, Cooley Cosmopolitan Diamond.

Ciara Power has won all three rounds of the Irish Horse Welfare Trust Thoroughbred Club class with her mother Miriam’s seven-year-old Zagreb gelding Finnegan’s Lake.