RATHANGAN’s Nicola Perrin had to settle for the reserve slot in the Gill Group riding horse championship at Dublin in 2022 on Ballarin Baroness and in 2023 on Ballarin Rose Bud but hopes to make it third time lucky on an Irish Sport Horse mare when partnering Ballarin Babette at next week’s Dublin Horse Show. She didn’t have a ride in the class last August.

Perrin’s chesnut daughter of Portlaoise Just Tuch, who was reserve in the recent Connolly’s Red Mills champion of champions ridden horse final at Barnadown, is one of four four-year-olds in the small horse class which, starting at 8.30am, is the first to be judged in Ring 1 by Jack Moore and Dale Atkinson.

There are a few horses in their teens while the oldest is Mary Davoren O’Regan’s thoroughbred gelding Castleiversdiamond, an unraced 25-year-old son of Oscar.

Co Galway’s Grace Maxwell Murphy returns with last year’s class runner-up, her own and husband William McMahon’s well-related home-bred ISH gelding Gleann Rua Monarch, a five-year-old bay by Moylough Legacy. Also going to the RDS is the 2022 section champion, John Hagan’s seven-year-old ISH mare Chantilly On The Rocks (by Guinness).

English owner Debbie Harrod, who won this class last August and 12 months previously with that year’s section champion Lulu de Beau, will be represented by the ISH gelding Glenkeeran The Last Dance.

This five-year-old chesnut by Crosstown Dancer is an own brother to Glenkeeran River (CCI3*-S ) and to top show hunter Glenkeeran Dance Inthedeep.

In the large horse class (for those over 158cms), the below three four-year-olds ISH geldings are likely to be entered.

These are Dick McElligott’s Cicero (by Chillout), Janet McKenna’s Watchouse High Voltage (by Stormy Mountain), winner of that aforementioned Connolly’s Red Mills champion of champions ridden horse final, and Vincent Meaney’s Aidensfield Wood Ranger (by Painters Pearl).

There are more thoroughbreds here and watch out for the resurgent P.J. Casey who rides Patrice Dorney’s five-year-old Dunbeggan Coevers Hill gelding Baker Street.