Star fades but legacy remains

TWENTY-FOUR hours short of the day 23 years previously when she collected him, Paula McCarthy’s renowned riding horse, Bobby Fennell, sadly died from a heart attack last Friday afternoon.

An unraced thoroughbred, ‘Star’ was bred in Ballyclare, Co Antrim by the Clyde family who once stood his sire, Bustomi, at their Craig Stud. The 1994 chesnut gelding was out of the Red Alert mare Petham Belle.

“I bought Star as a just broken three-year-old from David Bamber on the first Saturday in December 1997,” recalled Paula who works as an energy medicine therapist in Killyleagh, Co Down and as a working hunter coach. “I drove him around the roads for a few weeks before riding him around them.

“He was second as a five-year-old in a working hunter class at Balmoral but, apart from that outing, I kept him to riding horse, hack and side-saddle classes. He had a wonderful career winning four small riding horse classes at Dublin where he was champion three times and reserve on the other occasion. He was also reserve small riding horse champion at Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee Show at Windsor in 2002.”