FORTH Mountain returned to the list of Gallagher Dublin Horse Show qualifier venues on Tuesday of this week, when Jimme Quirke and Richard Murphy welcomed those seeking tickets for the young event horse classes and the working hunter classes at the RDS in August.

Quirke is spokesperson for the couple who took over the management and running of the Co Wexford centre from owner James O’Connor in May last year. “We were delighted to get back to holding the young event horse classes here, as I think they are just amazing. I’ve a four-year-old I had hoped to compete myself, but things just got away on me.

“We had to do a good bit, especially with the fences, to get the Derby Arena back up to scratch, but fair play to James, he has been a great help with all this. Ray (Doyle) built a really good working hunter track and I’m really looking forward to the Connemara and Draught classes on Saturday (today). It’s all a work in progress here at present, but we are hoping to start running working hunter shows and Derby classes.”

There was a clear local success in the four-year-old class, where the combined scores of judges Rosemary O’Connor (ride) and Jane Bradbury (conformation) saw Jessica Murphy qualifying in first on 93 marks with Patrick Murray’s Kilcorig Gotcha Talkin (Tyson - Gotcha Nema, by Casall). The Irish Sport Horse gelding was bred by Catherine Jackson.

Comber-based Gwen Scott competed two horses in the worker classes on Tuesday and qualified in second with both. Her ride here was Jayne McConnell’s ISH gelding Sinatra (87), a bay by Mermus R who won his lightweight hunter class and was reserve champion four-year-old at Balmoral in May when he was crowned champion working hunter, beating his stable-companion, McConnell’s older class winner Greenhall Dark Knight.

It was good to see Michael Bowe qualify in third on his father JJ’s ID gelding Barker (87), a grey by Gortfree Curious George out of a Castana mare, while Dylan Robinson claimed the fourth ticket on board Emma O’Gorman Wall’s ISH mare Ballynahia Zina Jordan (81), a daughter of Avos Jordan Z. Jenny Williams is another who picked up two tickets with her two rides on Tuesday, here doing so on Dermot Molloy’s ID gelding Jackdenvicon (79), a bay by WRS Sun Rise. The five who qualified recorded the only clear rounds.