THERE were 13 starters in the young horse class at last Sunday’s Connolly’s Red Mills/Association of Irish Riding Clubs’ national hunter trials championships in Nuenna Farm, where Barrow Valley’s Sandra Moran finished just two seconds over the optimum time to claim the win.

She did so on the home-bred Irish Sport Horse gelding Cornett Star (HHS Cornet - Beauty Of Johnstown, by Rainstown Hollow), a five-year-old bay who was professionally broken in January. “I started to ride ‘Ollie’ myself in April,” revealed a delighted Moran. “I had only done two summer shows with him before entering for the national hunter trials, which was my first ever time to ride him cross-country.