BOLEYBAWN Alvaro’s half-sister Boleybawn Alexa is this year’s Mervue Equine Broodmare Futurity champion. Aimed at pinpointing potential performance broodmares, the top-placed fillies and mares from Dublin’s loose performance three-year-olds and then the four, five and six-year-old show jumping classes are eligible for this Futurity.

Philip Baumgart paid a return visit as one of the judges, along with Marcel Beukers.

Bred by Ronan Rothwell, the champion has been based in Ballypatrick Stables since the middle of 2025. This was the second year in a row that stable jockey Harry Wood was connected to the Futurity champion. The pair were runners-up earlier in Sunday morning’s Cruising six-year-old final to Kilbrackan Stakkato.

By Grandorado TN N.O.P, (selected with Willem Greve for the Dutch team at the upcoming FEI World Show Jumping Championships in Aachen), the mare is out of Rothwell’s prolific Crown Z mare, Arina.

Recent winner

“She’s owned in partnership with Greg [Broderick], as a lot of Arina’s offspring have been. She’s a half-sister to Boleybawn Asha, who jumped 1.60m, Boleybawn Actor, who wins often at 1.50m level and the recent winner of the young horse class in St Gallen: Boleybawn Alvaro.

“It was a twin embryo flush so we have Alexa and her twin, Addison. Addison jumped also but she got hurt. She’s in foal to Drummer this year,” added Ronan, who organises several auctions.

“We had two foals out of Alexa in our auction last year, but neither reached their reserves so we still have them. We’ve Addison’s Ulrich foal in this year’s auction.

“We also have a three-year-old that looks very good out of Alexa, by Castlefield Future. She’ll be in our three-year-old auction in early December. The [Boleybawn] foal auction is online and closes on Thursday, September 3rd.”

The reserve in a tightly-knit scoresheet was Sean Stafford’s home-bred Ballyv Rosie (Chaccoon Blue - Ballyv Diane, by Luidam). This grey three-year-old won the filly section of the Horse Sport Ireland loose performance final on Thursday evening.