THE first of this year’s Dublin Horse Show qualifiers for performance Connemara ponies and Irish Draughts was held last Saturday at Tullylish, where the Stevenson family hosted the opening leg of the series for the first time.

Diarmuid Ryan partnered three outright winners and one dead-heater, landing both divisions of the four and five-year-old Irish Draught class on geldings owned by Dermot Molloy. While the grey Cummer Dubh (Section A) is obviously a consistent sort, having finished second at the RDS last August, the year-younger Two Mile Nigel (Section B) is a real eye-catcher.

Under Molloy, the King Vinny chesnut was crowned supreme novice champion at the Northern Ireland Festival in Cavan in April (qualifying for the evening performance on the Saturday as the champion novice working hunter horse), after which the combination finished sixth in the four and five-year-old ID performance class at Balmoral.

With the joint-highest flatwork mark (60) and the joint-highest conformation score (nine), Two Mile Nigel recorded one of six show jumping clears (160), with a rhythm and fluency mark of eight for a total of 237 points at Tullylish, where he was the only horse to qualify from Section B. He is out of the 2012 Penmerryls Rhythm And Blues mare Two Mile Gretta and was bred in Co Kerry by Jerry McMahon from whom Molloy bought as a foal.

Ryan recorded one of only two clear rounds inside the time on Cummer Dubh in Section A, receiving the full 10 points for rhythm and fluency, and completing on a winning total of 236.5. The Heigh Ho Dubh five-year-old was bred in Co Tipperary by Larry Carey out of Cummermore Lady (by Crannagh Hero). Sean Looney qualified in second on the 2020 Killountain Cross gelding Cotterstown Dancer (233), a bay gelding owned by Patricia Molloy, a sister of Dermot.

Here, Ryan also finished third on the Balmoral four-year-old working hunter class winner Seanchai (231). As the Graiguenamanagh veterinary surgeon has already reached his quota of qualified mounts for this year’s Dublin performance classes, chances are that Seanchai, a chesnut gelding by Gortfree Hero, will be ridden by his owner, Darren Jordan, in his search for a qualification ticket.

Ballagh Bouncer

Ryan didn’t have a ride in either of the older ID classes, the second of which produced just the one qualifier, Liam Lynskey’s DS Ballagh Bouncer, who, last August, was fourth in the final at Dublin, where he was also placed in the ID stallion class. The 12-year-old Moylough Bouncer sire, who has 133 Show jumping Ireland points, 158 Dressage Ireland points and has done a small bit of affiliated eventing, was bred in Co Roscommon by Brendan Duffy out of the Mount Diamond Flag mare, Mount Diamond Princess.

Correna Bowe finished 10 points adrift on her father J.J.’s Patrickswell Sherry, a Dublin regular, on whom she had claimed a Junior/Young Riders event horse ticket at the same venue the previous Tuesday.

Two 10-year-old grey geldings qualified out of Section A, the winner being the Penny Murphy-owned, Charlotte Harding-ridden, Killinick Bouncer-sired Kontiki (235.5 points), who finished third in the older working hunter horse class at Balmoral. He was bred in Co Cork by Seamus Neville out of Glen Cross (by Holycross).

Qualifying in second was Jenny Williams’s Gneeve King William (231.5), a regular finalist at Dublin and, under his owner, a winner of the Covid-affected finals held at Lambertstown in August 2021. On Saturday, Gneeve King William was ridden by Co Kilkenny-based British international event rider Nicky Roncoroni who, the previous weekend, finished second in the CCI2*-L at Millstreet on her own Irish Sport Horse gelding Rockalong.