LAST year, this column tipped Rathangan’s Nicola Perrin to win the TopSpec supreme hunter championship at the Dublin Show on Solsboro Zeus as she headed to the Ballsbridge showgrounds on the back of wins in the Connolly’s Red Mills champion of champions hunter final at Barnadown and in the hunter championship at Tattersalls July Show.

However, having claimed the middleweight title with her dark bay son of Dignified van’t Zorgvliet, Perrin had to settle for reserve in the four-year-old championship and in the supreme, behind the Jamie Smyth-ridden Tattygare Me Me Me. That Adrian Hurst-owned and bred Arkan bay recorded a clean sweep in the Main Arena on the Saturday morning as she also lifted the mares’ crown.

Neither horse will be chasing the Dublin hunter title this year. Solsboro Zeus was sold to England, where he sadly since died, while Tattygare Me Me Me is among the entries for the five-year-old young event horse. She qualified for that under Gwen Scott who, no doubt, will also be on board the mare should she fulfil her engagement in Sunday’s lightweight working hunter class.

Bitterly disappointed last August, Perrin has a new challenger for the Dublin title this season. Again, she rides a dark bay Irish Sport Horse gelding but this time the Castleforbes Lord Lancer six-year-old Rathmorrissey Lord Of The Dance who won his class and was reserve champion middleweight and four-year-old in 2023. Owned by Keith Martin and Kate Boyce of Aughrim Stables, Rathmorrissey Lord Of The Dance didn’t settle in the outside ring last year, finishing fourth.

However, he has enjoyed an excellent 2025 campaign to date and followed in the footsteps of his former stable-companion by winning the Connolly’s Red Mills champion of champions hunter final at Barnadown. There, he took the title ahead of the champion four-year-old, Tulcon Hero, who was ridden for his wife, Grace Maxwell-Murphy, by William McMahon.

This dark grey son of Gortfee Hero impressed on his debut when winning his heavyweight class and going reserve champion at the Limerick Harriers’ spring show in Ballycahane.

Following one other successful outing, the Co Galway combination then went to Balmoral where they won the heavyweight title and supreme championship. The four-year-old then got a bit of a break but showed no loss of form when winning his heavyweight classes at Charleville and Killusty.

Jamie Smyth is not going to let the Dublin title go without a fight. At Balmoral, he won the middleweight championship on Hilary Gibson’s five-year-old Newmarket Venture gelding Mr Venture Elm while among the horses he is producing for Debbie Harrod is the Royal Highland heavyweight winner, BBK Flynn. This six-year-old Arkan gelding was novice supreme champion at the Northern Ireland Festival in May.

A horse I like is John and Deirdre Burchill’s Ballard Bridgeboy, a 2019 son of Condios who won the five-year-old and upwards lightweight geldings’ class here at Dublin last August.