In keeping with previous years, the lightweights got the hunter action off at 8am on Thursday morning. For the turnout teams it was a red-eye start, and for those with multiple rides that morning, it was truly exhausting.

In the opener for four-year-old geldings, 31-year-old Rachel Moore Rooney picked up one of many red rosettes over the week, this time with Gillian Torrens’ Monart graduate, Cavalier Charlie.

By Friday evening the rider had secured tickets for five horses for the Laya Arena. It might be a logistical nightmare for outsiders, but she was fortunate to be able to call on P.J. Casey, Megan Norton and Aoibhinn Ruane who were delighted to deputise on Saturday morning.

It was another early start on the penultimate day of the show, and - disappointingly - spectators, aside from the avid show hunter supporters, were thin on the ground.

The mares’ championship was first up at 7.45am for ride judges Zara Owen (lightweight), Beanie Sturgis (middleweight) and Hayden Hankey (heavyweight), and conformation judges Patrick Lobb (lightweight), Josephine Jefferson (middleweight) and Ann Bassett (heavyweight).

Here we saw Nicola Perrin’s four-year-old Ballarin Valentina, a winner of her lightweight class on Thursday, come up against Moore Rooney again with David Sloan’s year-older Drumlane Kate who had stood second to her that day. Also in there was Marie Kent with her own six-year-old Chapel Hill Rose and Linzi Sullivan with her home-bred Foxcovert Dancingintherain, reserve champion mare in 2025 and hoping to go one better this time round having won the older lightweight mares’ division on Thursday.

All four were again ridden by the judges and it was the runner-up from Thursday, Drumlane Kate, that wowed them collectively on the day to take the title. In reserve was Ballarin Valentina, a daughter of OBOS Quality 004 bred in Co Clare by Michael Moloney (see Breeders’ 10 on page 80).

This was the start of a memorable morning for Moore Rooney, but even more so for owner/breeder David Sloan who travelled from Derry to cheer them on (See ‘Around the ringside’).

Tattersalls Ireland chairman Edmond Mahony was thrilled to take the reserve heavyweight hunter and reserve-four-year-old hunter titles with Northern Ranger \ Siobhan English

The four-year-old heavyweight class is often the least supported, and just seven had contested it this year. The winner here was Tattersalls Ireland chairman Edmond Mahony with his own Chacoa gelding, Northern Ranger. From the same class came Aubrey Chapman on board Stephen and Marilyn Locke’s Glandoran Sega Mega, bred by Daphne Tierney. Brian Murphy and the eventual winner BBK Flynn had topped the five-year-old and upwards heavyweights, ahead of Maria McNamara on her father Tom’s Shanbally Pippalo Pat, giving the judges four smashing horses to choose from for the first of the weight finals.

It can be daunting for the younger horses when they are put through their paces in the busy Laya Arena, but Mahony was almost lost for words when his lightly shown gelding showed experience beyond his years and was called forward as reserve champion.

“I was down at James Hanly’s with Frisk and Helen Jones last year inspecting yearlings and this three-year-old was in a field with one of them,” he said. “I couldn’t really concentrate on the yearlings as I was too busy looking at him and asked if he was for sale. He was bred by Frisk’s uncle Sean (Jones).

“Frisk said he would call me when he was backed, and in September I got that call,” Mahony reported. “I went down to ride him and said this is the horse I had been looking for.”

Mahony is no stranger to the winner’s enclosure. “I won a heavyweight championship at the RDS 42 years ago on a horse called Churchill produced by my late mother, Fania. I’ve had a few wins since but nothing like this,” he added.Mahony keeps his horses with Kieran Ryan. “He’s a master at producing them and we didn’t overshow him before Dublin. He will be a horse for next year.” Northern Ranger is the name of the hunt that pre-dated the Louth Hunt, of which Mahony has been a master since 1998.