THE much-admired First Rate very nearly pulled off a massive double at last week’s Stena Line Dublin Horse Show as his victory in Sunday’s working hunter championship in Ring Two came just a day after he stood reserve supreme show hunter in the Main Arena.

The six-year-old liver chesnut gelding is ridden and produced in Co Kilkenny by Louise Lyons for England’s Paulette Cooper who purchased the horse after he won the four-year-old workers here in 2016, a year in which he also contested the young event horse class. He has done extremely well in the interim both in weight classes and workers, here and in Britain.