JAMIE Smyth claimed the Event Technical Services riding horse championship at Balmoral Show for the second year running last Thursday week but this time on Debbie Harrod’s Lulu de Beau, the reigning Dublin titleholder.

Smith first won the ‘small’ class on the nine-year-old Anglo European Studbook-registered mare who is by the Hanoverian stallion Don Aqui out of a Dutch Warmblood mare by Sandeo. He then replaced the sidelined Gwen Scott to win the ‘large’ class on Anne Gomes’s well-bred Irish Sport Horse mare Memory Lane, a five-year-old by Island Commander out of Julie Crosbie’s Hankalo mare Hankalaine.

Smyth’s decision to switch back to Lulu de Beau for the championship proved correct as Denise Colebrooke (conformation) and Amy Kinane (ride) made her their champion ahead of the ‘small’ horse runner-up, Brymar Royal Voyage. This five-year-old ISH gelding by Royaldik was ridden by Ben Rainey for owner Gillian Gill who bred the chesnut out of her Stanley Grange Regal Heights mare Romanno Believe In Me.

Riding Harrod’s Knockroe Flash, a five-year-old skewbald by Condios, Smyth had to settle for second in the Blue Frog coloured horse class behind Sadhbh O’Connor on her mother Aoife’s Ashleas Grand Finale. Among other outings this season, the Co Kildare combination won the coloured pony championship at the Irish Pony Society spring show in Mullingar.