WHILE some sections of Balmoral Show have become so popular that qualifiers have had to be introduced, others are going in the opposite direction.

There was a very poor entry of just 11 for the three Bluegrass Horse Feed broodmare classes scheduled for the P&O Arena as the action got underway last Wednesday week and only four met their engagement before judges Cathy Wood and Chris Hewlett.

John Roche’s Assagart Fairytale saw off her sole rival to win the lightweight class while in the duel for honours between Co Donegal exhibitors, Enda Hamill came out on top in the Irish Draught class with the home-bred seven-year-old Gweebarra Realta (Millhollow Real MacCoy – Dreamtime Mayfie, by Blue Rajah).

The 10-year-old Coroner mare Assagart Fairytale and her Carrabis Z filly won at Bandon on Sunday and will bid to qualify for Dublin at Lurgan Show on Saturday, June 7th, as the Northern Ireland Shows Association season really kicks into gear. Others could be heading to Ballymena next Saturday.

Roche’s mother Mary Margaret Roche had a win to celebrate over the past week as Kilfilum Woods, the Beat Hollow gelding she bred out of the Trans Island mare Cheryls Island won the novice hunters’ chase at Huntingdon. The nine-year-old won four point-to-points previously this season.

Thirteen horses in total were shown in the entire Ulster Bank Clydesdale section, the standout exhibits being Nicholas Jenkins’s Knockmore Sam, a Carnaff Churchill Sir James six-year-old who won the ridden class plus the in-hand geldings’ class, and John Cross’s Castletown Carla, a home-bred daughter of Doura Aird Ambition who won her yearling filly class before being crowned champion.