SIFTING through show reports and photographs helped to compile this year’s most memorable winners. Once again, there was an abundance of notable champions from the Irish and cross-channel show rings, right up to Ballinasloe and the Horse of the Year Show in October.

ASSAGART MY ONLY HOPE

Although youngstock entries were at worryingly low levels at most shows throughout the summer, it was a vintage year for the sport horse broodmare ranks. This was apparent at Dublin, where the Coote Cup broodmare championship had some great contenders, including the ultimate champion; John and Julia Crosbie’s rare sort Hankalaine, a homebred daughter of the German thoroughbred Hankalo.

Nick Murphy’s Inistioge Best Betty was to provide her Kilkenny breeder Thomas Smyth with an Irish Horse Board breeders award following her run of good wins in 2014, including the Dublin reserve and Limerick Matron titles. Martin Murphy’s Dublin-winning Black Beauty and the Newell family’s Kilcahill Diamond also made their mark throughout the summer.

However it was a long-awaited win in The Irish Field Breeders Championship by Assagart My Only Hope that provided one of the most memorable Dublin highlights. She and her Castleforbes Lord Lancer colt foal finally ended the Roche family’s quest, begun by the late Michael, to win this coveted class, the richest of its kind.

Bought the previous autumn from Dermot O’Sullivan, for whom she had already won two All Ireland titles, John Roche’s busy campaign included winning the broodmare championship at Bandon with the Big Sink Hope grey before the combination qualified for Dublin at Gorey.

BLOOMFIELD EXCELSIOR

Daphne Tierney’s Goresbridge buy began to pay dividends when Bloomfield Excelsior stood Balmoral reserve hunter champion to the McIlwaine family’s Dancing Queen back in May. The performance-bred grey then swept all before him at Dublin to win a second supreme hunter championship title for Tierney and producer Jane Bradbury. The same combination had also claimed the 2011 title with the traditionally-bred Bloomfield Ollie.

Their latest champion is by the Swedish-Irish warmblood sire Jack Of Diamonds, while Excelsior’s damsire Cruising was also in the main arena on that Sunday afternoon, as part of his daughter Mo Chroi’s retirement ceremony. This event, which turned out to be the five-star stallion’s last public appearance, followed on from the parade of champions when the striking Excelsior once again showed his impressive gallop.

Tierney’s champion was one of several Dublin winners snapped up by British buyers and past exports were to feature prominently at the Horse of the Year Show in October. While the tide was out for Irish-bred champions in recent years, the 2014 results saw a welcome return of fortunes.

The Jill Day/Robert Walker team won the hunter championship at the NEC Arena with the former Dublin young horse champion, Caesars Palace, a five-year-old by Emperor Augustus. Coincidentally, his previous owner John Donaghy won another Dublin young horse title in August, this time with his two-year-old thoroughbred Northern Image.

Other Irish-bred winners to have enjoyed their turn under the NEC Arena spotlights include the purebred Irish Draught ambassadors of the maxi cob, Hallmark IX, by Welcome Flagmount, and heavyweight show hunter, Loughkeen Dancing Lord, by Crosstown Dancer.

DRUMBAD FLETCHER MOSS

Stallion champions were one of the main themes of this season’s Connemara classes and one of the most eye-catching examples of this native breed was Eamonn Burke’s new find Drumbad Fletcher Moss. Lightly shown as a youngster, the Frederiksminde Hazy Match son spent the following years running out with mares before Burke, who had always been interested in buying him, sealed the deal for the 10-year-old once he came on the market.

Expertly shown by his son Joe, the pair made a winning debut at Westport Show during the June bank holiday weekend. More major wins were to follow for the stallion at Ballinalee, Galway County and Clifden.

Two other Connemara stallions to have featured well at Dublin include JJ Bowe’s Josie Jump, who won the junior performance hunter championship, and Tom Murray’s Plume De Kezeg, who claimed the Eugenia Murphy Cup as the ridden champion.

ELM VIEW

Seamus Sloyan’s big-moving liver chesnut Elm View has built up one of the most prolific records in recent Irish Draught show ring history. Her latest chapter involves a rare Dublin treble when she won the Eileen Parkhill trophy presented to the champion Irish Draught mare, while her Fast Silver colt stood reserve champion foal.

The same combination then followed up in the Leitrim Breeders combined final, hosted at Mohill Show and part of Horse Sport Ireland’s national showing championship series. This was the second successive year that the Elm Hill mare had won this particular final and these results earned her owner’s uncle, Raymond Sloyan, another Irish Horse Board breeders award last month.

Sadly Seamus Sloyan senior passed away in October, shortly after the final show of the year at Ballinasloe. Elm View and her colt had won the new combination championship there and also the Martin Conneely Cup, named after the well-known Irish Draught breeder. Having taken up a new job in London, Seamus Sloyan had credited this summer’s success to his father who had kept Elm View and her foal primed for the show ring.

GORTFREE HERO

The year 2014 also belonged to Gortfree Hero as Sean Barker’s gold merit stallion reclaimed the Dublin class first won in 2010 by the imposing ‘Frank’, as he is known to his large fan club. With two wins apiece now for Gortfree Hero and another dual Dublin champion in the Jimmy Quinn-owned Cappa Casanova (2012, 2013) an intriguing Irish Draught stallion class is now in store for next year’s Dublin Horse Show.

Few Dublin winners would have had quite the same homecoming reception when Barker’s Grade A show jumping stallion returned to Tourmakeady, where the parish turned out to welcome home their local hero.

The friendly rivalry between Cappa Casanova and Gortfree Hero continued when Barker, Quinn and four more sporting owners entered their stallions for the All Ireland Irish Draught stallion championship. Held at Clonaslee in September, this showdown was another of Horse Sport Ireland’s national showing championship series and saw another win for Gortfree Hero, ahead of Paddy Joe Foy’s Clew Bay Bouncer and Jimmy Quinn’s Cappa Casanova.

PADDOCK PORCELAIN

The influence of the Welsh pony is never far away when looking at pedigrees of champion ponies. Numerous pure and part-bred Welsh crop up in show results, including one of the breed’s best examples, Martin O’Sullivan’s exquisite Paddock Porcelain.

Yet another pony sourced at the famous Fayre Oaks sale in Wales, she led to visiting Welsh judge DP Jones commenting that the mare’s only problem was that she was sold to Ireland when he made her his Welsh supreme champion at Midleton Show.

Part-Welsh types are regular features of side-saddle classes, and for both the junior and senior classes, a concerted effort was made this year to retain the Dublin side-saddle class. This year’s respective RDS senior and junior class winners - Cheryl Cusack’s Whitfield Jack Of Hearts and Zara Nelson on board Millridge Buachaill Bui – topped line-ups of riders who were determined to keep this showcase event at Dublin by travelling to the various nationwide qualifiers.