THE Peaky Blinder may have had to wait three years but, in Ring 2 last Friday afternoon, the grey Irish Draught gelding regained the Dublin Horse Show cob title he lost in 2019 having won it the previous year.

Ridden by Brian Murphy for owners Pat Loughlin and his sister Perle O’Rourke, the 10-year-old first landed a poorly-supported maxi class, swopping positions with Ann Regan’s Cobability Brown who had beaten him at Balmoral in May.

Murphy faced a slight quandary at this point as he had earlier won the lightweight class on Amanda Benson’s Goodnight Master, a four-year-old grey gelding who took the red ahead of the year-older chesnut gelding Codeword who was ridden by Jamie Smyth for Lindy Winship.

Also chosen by William Morton (ride) and Bridget Millington to go through to the championship was another chesnut gelding, Foxtrot, and Aughrim Stables’ six-year-old dun gelding Kinky Boots, winner and second in the heavyweight class. Foxtrot, a four-year-old ridden and produced for England’s Camilla Bowlby by P.J. Casey, had taken the cob title at the Tattersalls July Show where The Peaky Blinder stood reserve.

Murphy’s decision to stick with the former champion in the cob finale paid dividends as The Peaky Blinder took the Dublin title ahead of Codeword. Joint-owner Loughlin celebrated before, during and after a night at the dogs in Shelbourne Park.

The owners should be credited for holding on to their dual champion who, unlike so many cobs, has always been catalogued with a traceable pedigree.

A son of Rockrimmon Silver Diamond, he was bred in Co Mayo by Sandra Cleary Noone and Peter Noone out of the Mountain Diamond mare Larigan Coolderry Diamond.

In July, The Peaky Blinder won the Connolly’s Red Mills champion of champions ridden horse title at Tattersalls Ireland where last week’s riding horse champion, Chantilly On The Rocks, stood reserve and last week’s working hunter champion, Gortfree Lakeside Lad, was third.