IN a fitting end to the gelding’s 10-year top flight jumping career, Abbervail Van Het Dingeshof bowed out in style with a win at the five-star show in Basel, Switzerland last Saturday night with his long-time rider Denis Lynch.

The 16-year-old gelding by the sire NonStop out of a Jus De Pomme dam, has been a key member of Lynch’s string for over a decade, with numerous Grand Prix wins, while the pair also represented Ireland on Nations Cup duty on a number of occasions.

Speaking this week to The Irish Field, Lynch was keen to pay tribute to one of his stable stars: “He has been a fantastic servant for me over the years. We bought him from Jos Lansink as a seven-year-old and he turned out to be very versatile. He could jump Nations Cups, Grands Prix, Derbys and was great indoors and outdoors. He was incredibly sound and very rarely missed a show. It was great to retire him when he was still at the peak of fitness. Mr Straumann and I spoke about it and we agreed this was the show to retire him at. I was very lucky to have Abbervail for so many years.”

Owned by the Irishman’s long-time backer Thomas Straumann, ‘Abbie’ as he was known in the yard, twice made it to the FEI World Cup finals. Their first appearance in the World Cup final at Leipzig in 2011 ended prematurely when Lynch suffered a dramatic fall, however a year later they returned to the finals, this time at Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands where they finished in 11th place overall.

Among Lynch and Abbervail’s Nations Cup appearances for Ireland, was a winning performance at Lummen in Belgium in 2010 where they jumped a double clear round.

The same year the pair scored a win in the four-star Grand Prix at Weisbaden, Germany, while in 2014 they won the Rabobank championship at the Dutch Nations Cup show. Also in 2014, Abbervail landed the 1.50m speed class at the five-star show in Mechelen, Belgium, while in 2015 they won a 1.50m class at the World Cup fixture in Bordeaux.

Another five-star win followed at Gothenburg in Sweden in 2015, while the gelding scored a memorable hat-trick at a show in Braunschweig, Germany last March. Abbervail won a 1.50m class on the first day of the show, followed by another 1.50m win a day later and finished an incredible three days with a 1.55m Grand Prix win at the German venue.

Another five-star win followed at the Global Champions Tour show in Vienna last September, before Abbervail Van Het Dingeshof scored his very last five-star win in Basel last weekend in a perfect end to a glittering career.