NINE. That’s the number of Dublin broodmare titles won by the Roche family from Wexford, although it involved a last-minute switch for John Roche.

Assagart Fairytale (Coroner), their two-time defending champion, had an easy road to the RDS, winning the Balmoral title from two broodmare entries there in May.

Last Saturday’s classes were much stronger affairs and Dessie Gibson’s knack for finding eyecatching grey Silvano mares paid off again when his Drumbo Bluebell, bred by Catherine Gorman, won the opening middle/heavyweight mare class.

Also earning her championship place was Kieran O’Gorman’s home-bred Munther’s Hope, whose sire later lined out in the Croker Cup class.

The next top-two pair through from the lightweight class were Darragh Glynn’s Crannaghmore Elusive Lady and last year’s Coote reserve champion: Aileen Dwyer’s thoroughbred Vanity Flare (Robin des Pres).

10 years ago, Darragh first met Niamh Varley at Dublin when she asked to borrow a leather coupling for her father John’s Elusive Emir before the stallion won the Croker Cup.

That led to another coupling of the matrimonial kind and the pair returned from their South African honeymoon just before Dublin.

Their winner is by that 2015 Croker Cup champion out of the Aughrim Knight mare Mary’s Lady, that has produced several All Ireland winners.

John Roche with Assagart Hopeful and Dermot O’Sullivan who previously owned the Coote Cup champion’s dam My Only Hope and won the All Ireland two and three-year-old titles with her before her sale at the 2025 Dublin Horse Show \ Susan Finnerty

Hyped

The third and final Coote championship chance lay in the stinted mare class, which lived up to that much-hyped word ‘strong’. Two more greys stood top of this class: Roche’s Assagart Hopeful and Loretta Hanley’s Be In The Moment Elm (Barely A Moment).

Three foal classes were held before the broodmare championship and Gibson was again the big winner as Bubbles, Bluebell’s Sir Lando foal, won both the colt and the lucrative €3,000 to-the-winner class for foals with a thoroughbred parent.

Vanity Flare’s filly, by the Irish Draught sire Ludden Skywalker, was also eligible and took the blue.

Roche was ‘Hopeful’

In the Dublin broodmare championship for the cup, bequeathed by the quaintly-named Sir Algernon Coote, Claire Oliver and Robin Sharp opted for Assagart Hopeful.

Pink Flamingo, another Silvano grey, had won this in 2022 for Gibson, however he had to be content this year with Bubbles’ reserve place.

The home-bred champion is by Castleforbes Lord Lancer. Her Big Sink Hope dam Assagart My Only Hope is a two-time All Ireland filly champion for previous owner Dermot O’Sullivan.

She was the winning mare twice in The Irish Field Breeders’ Championship (2014, 2017) and her foal at foot for that first win - Assagart Lord Lancer - won the 2017 Laidlaw Cup.

Late change

“The funniest thing about it was I had planned to lead the other mare [Assagart Har-mony] in the [stinted mare] class and 30 seconds beforehand, I changed over numbers.

“I just said to myself, ‘that’s not the mare they’re looking for this year,’ when I saw that Dessie and Glynn’s mares had won, that they were looking for an athletic, scopey type and I thought the grey mare was looking a million dollars.”

Several of the Breeders’ Championship mares and foals were out of Saturday’s rib-bons, together with last year’s champion Assagart Fairytale.

“Fair enough, we were down the line but look, that will happen. Different strokes for different folks,” said John, who, along with family and friends missed the presence of his sister Marguerite, who passed away in February.