LOUISE Bloomer bridged a gap of 13 years when winning the Horse Sport Ireland-sponsored CCI1*-Intro for five and six-year-olds at Ballindenisk last weekend on Shannondale Levi as her previous international success had come in the CCI1* at Necarne Castle in September 2009 with Hollybrook High In The Sky.

Bloomer’s success at the Fell family’s Co Cork venue is easily described as the Co Wicklow rider claimed the 34-runner class on the winning dressage score of 29.8 penalties she was awarded by Seppo Laine (C) and Maire Hennessy (B) for her test on Shannondale Levi who she owns in partnership with Jinnie Webb.

“Jinnie is a great supporter of mine,” commented Bloomer. “I was delighted to win this class for her and to place 12th in the CCI4*-S on his full-brother Shannondale Icarus on whom I went for a slow, careful clear to finish off the season.

“Levi is such a good boy. Last season we had great results in the Stepping Stones league and qualified for the RDS national championships final at Lambertstown. We started competing with Eventing Ireland back in May with one run in an EI90 (finished second) and he has been placed in nearly all his EI100 runs since then, winning at Frankfort Stud in July.

“I was disappointed with his dressage score at the national championships but there, like everywhere else, he jumped a double clear to finish ninth. He is still a bit green but I like the fact that he still goes like a five-year-old. I didn’t want to give him a break before but he’ll have one now and, if he is not sold in the interim, we will do some 1.10m classes with him next year.”

Apart from two combinations who were marginally over the time in the show jumping phase, the top 11 on the final leaderboard for this Micheal Leonard championship completed on their flatwork marks.

Co Cork-based Sian Coleman finished second on her dressage score with Kate Jarvey’s highly regarded five-year-old Dirado mare Diamond Mistress (30.6) whose dam, Shes My Master, won this class, then a national competition, in 2014. Fortunately, 0.4 of a time penalty didn’t affect Ian Cassells’s third place finish on Bridget McGing’s home-bred, traditionally bred Inquisitor (31.1), a five-year-old Coroner gelding who finished second to Diamond Mistress in the RDS national championships at Lambertstown in August 2021.