Margie McLoone

THE much-beribboned Colorado returns to the Dublin Horse Show on Wednesday afternoon to contest the older Thornton Recycling small hunter class in which he finished second last year having won the class and championship in 2012.

Now owned by Armagh’s Alison Crozier, the 15-year-old chesnut gelding will face renewed opposition from Kate McMahon’s home-bred Nautilus mare Inis Faith (third in 2014) and Philippa Scott’s multiple winner Le Polar Bear who was fourth to the liver chesnut at Balmoral.

Moving into the older division this season is Rufina Shiel Mullen’s six-year-old Crannagh Hero mare Madame Stella, another liver chesnut, who was second in the younger class last year.

The older section has increased by one for 2015 but there has been a jump from 13 to 23 entries in the four and five-year-old class which first comes before Jack Cochrane and Allister Hood at 12.50pm on Wednesday. Three of the 15 juveniles are mares including Jane Bradbury’s Gardenia, a chesnut by the Irish Draught Diamond Design, and Maura Rooney’s home-bred The Hill, a grey Fintan Himself half-sister to her year older lightweight hunter Middleburg (by Westfield Bobby).

The two five-year-old mares are Monica Hartley’s Scarthill O’Shea, a roan daughter of the Connemara Patty’s Veuve Cosmic out of a thoroughbred mare by Brush Aside, and Mary and Derry Rothwell’s Irish Draught Greenhall Polly, a grey by Windgap Blue.

Among the pure Connemara geldings is J.P. O’Connor’s five-year-old Tulira Robuck grey Justin Grey while Paul O’Shaughnessy has entered Chantilly Bojangles, a four-year-old bay Kroongraaf gelding. Ciaran Rossiter bucks the trend with the four-year-old Daz Effect, a skewbald gelding by Enaghan Cavalier.