KILKENNY’S Kevin Babington may have thought a special tribute to his great show jumper Carling King was going to be the highlight of his day at the Silver Oak Jumper Tournament in Halifax last Sunday.

There wasn’t a dry eye left by the end of the moving tribute to Babington’s late superstar but yet more was to come when the Irishman went on to win the highlight competition, the $75,000 Agero Grand Prix on Shorapur.

It’s Babington’s third Grand Prix win inside a month and in winning, he beat defending champion and fellow Irishman Paul O’Shea.

It was also announced that the Leading Rider trophy at Silver Oak will now be known as the Carling King Leading Jumper award and very fittingly, Babington was the first recipient of it last weekend.

“This last three weeks have been amazing,” said Babington. “We won three Grands Prix including this one. It’s just been incredible and the Carling King trophy means so much to me. It brought tears to my eyes. I always knew how great a horse he was, but just to see a flashback of what he actually was and what he had done, was incredible.”

The only cloud on the horizon at Silver Oaks was the broken collarbone sustained by top American rider Margie Engle, competing at the venue for the first time. Engle is expected to make a full recovery but had been named for the America’s World Equestrian Games team.

Course designer Olaf Petersen Jr. came up with a course that saw 11 of the 27 entries go clean. The jump-off looked like it might be over right from the start as defending champion Paul O’Shea returned first with Calista and laid down a heck of an opening run. Really flying on the long runs, O’Shea did the 10 strides coming home and finished in a speedy 40.838 seconds.

Jonathan Corrigan and California 62 rolled the rail at fence 13a before tripping the timers in 44.094 for ninth place.

Paul O’Shea then appeared to put a lock on a Silver Oak title for the second year in a row when he went clean again, this time with his top mount, Primo de Revel. O’Shea beat his own time by 5/10ths of a second and moved to the top of the charts in 40.329.

However, as it turned out, he would be 1.7 seconds too slow and would finish in third place by the time the class was over.

Everyone was excited to see Jeffery Welles return next with Prem Dollar Boy. Welles had just finished near the top of the charts in the first class of the day in a real horse race with Ireland’s Kevin McCarthy. However, his mount didn’t have the same plan in mind this time and stopped suddenly after the rollback to fence 15. Welles parted company and finished in 10th place.

Kevin Babington, as the next to go with Shorapur however, put the class out of reach. Making all the handy rollbacks and gambling on the 10 strides coming home, Babington broke the beams in a winning time of 38.627, almost two seconds faster than O’Shea.

“I had a chance to see Paul go,” said Babington, “and I planned on doing six down the first line and I thought to myself, to win this, I need to go five down that line, so I changed my plan as I was cantering up to the first jump, and then I made the good run for the last fence.”

Lucy Deslauriers, competing in just her second big-time Grand Prix (and her second against her father Mario), had a great second ride aboard Hester. She flew home in an impressive 40.601 which would wind up in fourth place.

Mario Deslauriers had the next chance on his imposing chesnut Scout De La Cense and he made a real run for the title. Coming home just a little bit short of Babington’s time in 39.865, the duo would take home second place honours.

That left it all up to Paul O’Shea and his final mount, but a run for the money on this one was never in the plans. Riding River Dance Semilly, O’Shea cruised home in a comparatively leisurely pace of 42,815 seconds. Fast enough for 6th, but not nearly fast enough to win.

“He is hopefully going to jump in the Grand Prix in the Hamptons,” O’Shea said. “He is still quite green. He’s only a nine year-old. He has done a lot of good things and I was just getting him ready for the Hampton Classic. It could have helped to have Primo going last, but it was Kevin’s day. He was obviously a lot faster than me, but my four horses jumped great today.”

Babington paid tribute to Shorapur saying, “I’ve always said that she is the next one (Carling King). Before she came along, I was kind of half-thinking about just being a trainer and starting a feed business,” he admitted. “But, she came along and really put the skip back in my step and I think she is really, really special.

“We have a week off and then to the Hampton Classic, then the Hits Million and then the Gold Cup,” Babington continued. “I will take the pressure off and then really step her up to the plate for the Gold Cup. Wow, today was a great day,” he smiled.

ON THE MARK

Babington was also on the mark earlier, winning the $10,000 Shires Equestrian Welcome Stakes on the second day of the tournament with Goodwins Loyalty from 24 starters.

The Kilkenny rider crossed the line clear in a speedy 44.874 seconds to score the win.

“My mare has a really big strike. I felt like I was going really slowly from one to two in the jump-off because she has such a big step,’’ said the winning rider.

Nick Dello Joio, who eventually finished second on his eight-year-old stallion Starkko, rode five horses in the class while Paul O’Shea was double-handed but out of luck with River Dance Semilly and Skara Glen’s Dolphin.

Meanwhile, the Unicorn Landing Grand Prix field kicked off with the 1.40m Open Jumper Class, Table II B, claimed by Mario Deslauriers and Peyton, in an impressive jump-off time of 34.308.

Here again the red ribbon went to Kevin Babington and Heather Irons’ KEC Jackson, only a 10th of a second behind with a time of 34.414.

Babington also placed KEC Jackson third in the 1.30m power and speed class and was fourth with Groovy in the Sisco Berluti 1.40m power and speed class.