IT was a long weekend of award presentations for the extended Ennis family as, three days before Sarah was announced as winner of The Irish Field senior event rider of the year title, her brother-in-law, Conor Fogerty, was named as sailor of the year by Afloat magazine.

Conor, who is married to Suzanne Ennis, won the award for his performance in the single-handed east-west transatlantic race last summer when he sailed from Plymouth in Devon to Newport, Rhode Island. Four boats were lost when the fleet was hit by an unexpected hurricane but Fogerty, and two other helmsmen, avoided the worst of the weather having decided to head north after passing Ireland while the main group went south.

According to Afloat, when Conor and “Bam! crossed the line at Newport on 19 June to take that prize of prizes, the Gipsy Moth Trophy, Fogerty’s closest competition was 500 miles astern – and his only company in port were boats with far more muscle and speed potential. It was a prime example of a skipper making all the difference.”

The Howth sailor would like to take on the challenge of the single-handed around-the-world race in 2020.

Conor was presented with his award on Friday night at the RDS, a venue where Suzanne very much hopes to compete in the young event horse division next August. “I ticked one item off my bucket list when I rode at the international at Tattersalls in 2012 but I have never yet ridden at the RDS. My sisters Sarah, Niamh and Nicola have done extremely well there over recent years, while I owned Stellor Comet on whom Sarah won the four-year-old class in 2013.

“I have a nice five-year-old Clover Brigade gelding who I bought last May and he has a lovely jump to him. Unfortunately, with Conor being away so much I haven’t had time to put a lot of work into the horse being tied up with our two children, Amy (11) and Ben (two and a half), but I’ll have to get cracking if I want to qualify for the show.”

While Conor had been home in Howth for six months, he left very early on Tuesday morning for the warm waters of the Caribbean.