WICKLOW rider/producer Jane Bradbury and owner Daphne Tierney have a strong hand in the TopSpec show hunter section at the RDS this year.

The partnership has won the supreme championship twice in the last five years with two four-year-old geldings, the middleweight Bloomfield Ollie (2011) and Bloomfield Excelsior, winner, en route to the 2014 title, of the sole heavyweight class.

There are three classes for David Machin and Robin Sharp to judge in Ring 2 on Friday morning with the Lux Z gelding Bloomfield Valhalla, juvenile champion at both Balmoral and Tattersalls, one of seven horses catalogued in the four-year-old division.

Interesting opponents here are P.J. Casey’s The Street Fighter, a chesnut son of Camiro de Haar Z, Edmond and Fiona Mahony’s DSL Jackaroo, who is by Bloomfield Excelsior’s sire Jack Of Diamonds (SWB), and Vicky Ormedilla’s Master Flint, who is by one of the best represented stallions in the show, the deceased Irish Draught, Crosstown Dancer.

There are a number of pure Irish Draughts in the five-year-old section including Loughlin & O’Rourke’s Fort Knocks, a Gortfree Hero gelding who won his class at Balmoral, while Craughwell exhibitor Tom McNamara will be hoping to take the red here with the Glid Uibhall grey Shanbally Huntsman, who is not far off being categorised ID.

In the class for six to eight-year-olds, six of the seven entries are geldings, the odd one out being John Hagan’s Crosstown Dancer mare Gransha Tarrango.

In common with six others, that eight-year-old is an Irish Sport Horse, unlike Mark Eccles’s Obsidian Sky, a six-year-old thoroughbred gelding by Scorpion.

Three times winner of the supreme championship in the last seven years, Waterford exhibitor Rosemary Connors proved unbeatable last August with her home-bred Albano gelding Woodfield Alight. While she has nothing of her own to show in the lightweight section next week, Connors has the grey Woodfield Graphite among six entries in the five-year-old middleweight geldings’ class.

There are just half a dozen entries also in the sole mares’ class in this weight division, the three home-breds being Derry Rothwell’s Crosstown Dancer bay Greenhall Wishing Well, John and Mary Margaret Roche’s Balmoral ladies’ astride champion Assagart Mistress (by Kings Master) and Margaret Jeffares’s well-known Ballykelly Empress.

The last-named, a daughter of the thoroughbred stallion Emperor Augustus (another sire whose stock at the show run into double figures), was the only horse to have beaten last August’s supreme youngstock champion, Notalot, in the show ring when she stood ahead of her in the All-Ireland two-year-old fillies’ championship at Kildysart in 2014.

On paper, the four-year-old geldings’ class looks extremely strong including, as it does, the 2015 reserve three-year-old champion, Martin and Walsh’s Moshaajir bay Diamond Choice, Wendy Phipps’s highly-regarded Stockbroker, who is by the extremely popular Zangersheide stallion Lux Z, and two from the Tierney/Bradbury axis, Bloomfield Bespoke (by Future Trend) and Bloomfield Arklight (by Power Blade).

Now in the ownership of Claire Connors, last year’s five-year-old lightweight plus ladies’ side-saddle winner Rehy I’m A Star (by Harlequin du Carel) is one of a dozen entries in the older middleweight geldings’ class. Here also are Angus McDonnell’s Ricardo Z bay Statesman, Daphne Tierney’s flashy Amiro M six-year-old, Bloomfield Executive and the 2015 winner, Neil Walsh’s Clodiagh (by Classic Vision).

The middleweights will also be judged in Ring 2 on Friday morning by Matthew Ainsworth and Michael Cooper, while Ian Smeeth and Michelle Burgess will assess the lightweights in the same ring starting at 11am on Thursday.

In this Olympic year, an apt winner of the opening older geldings’ class would be George Chapman’s Abalou Verte six-year-old Usain Bolt, who may have most to fear from the similarly-aged chesnuts, Emily Casey’s Major Tom (by Out Of Touch) and Lyndsey Wylie’s Front Line (by Harlequin du Carel).

Ned and Del Cash won the heavyweight and four-year-old championships last August with the Rainstown Lad bay An Ceannus and next week will be represented by his full brother, All Because, in the four-year-old lightweight geldings’ class.

There are two interesting entries out of thoroughbred mares, Co Mayo exhibitor Anthony Gill’s unnamed home-bred bay by the hugely popular OBOS Quality 004 and Dublin regular Dick McElligott’s Merrywell Onslo King, a Kings Master half-brother to four-star Austrian show jumper Merrywell Alfie Douglas (by Ard VDL Douglas).

Others to note here are J.P. O’Connor’s well-related Ghareeb bay Tiro and Daphne Tierney’s home-bred Bloomfield Kylemore, a grey from the first crop of the thoroughbred stallion Financial Reward.

It’s good to see the return of a four-year-old mares’ class and that among the eight exhibitors are two of the top show horse breeders, Derry Rothwell with his Crosstown Dancer chesnut Greenhall Cruising In June and John and Mary Margaret Roche with their Coroner bay Assagart Spirit. Look out here too for Hannah Wood’s smart Womanizer grey, Follow Her Home.

The older mares’ class, which has also attracted eight entries, features Judith and Russell Cowley’s home-bred Arthurs Gold chesnut Cloneyhea Jasmine, Richard Gildea’s Moytura Miss Moneypenny, a dark bay daughter of Cougar, Patricia McGowan’s Loch Cruise grey EMS Richeals Pet and Hugh Newell’s home-bred Crosstown Dancer bay Dancing Domain.

While there are 12 horses listed in the five-year-old geldings’ class we know the Tattersalls champion, Bloomfield Spotlight, will be missing following his recent sale to England.

The entry is headed by two proven home-bred performance horses, Ann O’Grady’s Tinaranas Inspector bay Ballingowan Euphoria and Caroline Bjoerk’s DSL The Entertainer, a dark brown son of Omar.

Two chesnuts, Laura Kelly’s home-bred HL Marley And Me (by Kings Master) Avril Cox-Mills’s Tattygare Mr Perfect (by Porsch) are no strangers to the RDS.

They finished third and fifth here under saddle last year while the pair also took one another on in-hand three times before then, Tattygare Mr Perfect being reserve yearling champion back in 2012.