TO quote the great North of Ireland singer/songwriter Van Morrison, ‘When it’s not always raining there’ll be days like this’ and Co Wicklow owner Daphne Tierney enjoyed just such an occasion on a warm, sunny and bright Wednesday afternoon at Balmoral Show.

In partnership with her long-term rider/producer Jane Bradbury, Tierney won her first Creightons of Finaghy hunter championship with Bloomfield Bespoke, successful earlier in the day in the older middleweight class. The five-year-old grey gelding, who was bred in Co Clare by James Nash, is by the Oldenburg stallion Future Trend out of a Prospect Pride mare.

While celebrating this victory, Tierney and Bradbury were delighted to learn that on hunter day at Windsor, three of their former charges had been successful under Jayne Ross – Bloomfield Excelsior (hunter champion), Bloomfield Valhalla (novice hunter champion) and Bloomfield Tetrarch (middleweight class winner). All four horses had been purchased in the ring at Goresbridge.

Reserve champion at Balmoral was the older lightweight winner, Man Of Honour, ridden and produced by Scotland’s Kirstine Douglas while Lesley Webb, who had a very successful show, claimed the four-year-old title on Yvonne Pearson’s Munther mare Queen Bee.

P.J. Casey was reserve in that juvenile division on the middleweight Tattygare Good To Go, home-bred by the Hurst family. Shirley Hurst could have ridden the tall bay herself but instead opted to send the Porsch gelding down to Casey in recent weeks while she helped Dessie Gibson with his young horses at Balmoral.

This proved an inspired move on Hurst’s behalf as she showed the youngstock champion, the three-year-old lightweight OBOS Quality 004 gelding CAFRE Quartermaster, while Gibson himself led up the reserve, the two-year-old Watermill Swatch gelding Rolex.

Unbeaten at Dublin last July, Paula Howard’s lightweight Ghareeb 11-year-old Slatequarry Sasha maintained that winning form on Wednesday when she was crowned champion broodmare ahead of the middle/heavyweight class winner, Richard Gildea’s Grove Hill Heather, a nine-year-old daughter of Cougar.

Friday was devoted to performance with Co Wicklow’s Alicia Devlin Byrne winning the Irish Draught championship on board her well-known Welcome Flagmount gelding King Flagmount. In the later Knotts Bakery young event horse championships, Rachel McKimmon landed the four-year-old division on the Namellus R mare Oke Ruby R while Jonny Mulligan took the five-year-old title with Mervyn Gibson’s Ricardo Z gelding Randalstown Commando.

JOY FOR FEARON

International jumping kicked-off at Balmoral on Friday with the AON Risk Services (NI) Ltd Accumulator where Neal Fearon took victory aboard Magic Cuidam, lodging the maximum score of 65 in a time of 49.66 seconds to take the winner’s share of the £2,200. Greg Broderick tried hard but despite scoring 65 points with Daify, their time of 49.63 saw them take second. In third was Ger Clarke who set the target early when he posted the maximum score with Ardragh Stein in 51.40. No results were available for the Balmoral Grand Prix at press time. Full reports from Balmoral in next week’s issue.