GODFREY Gibbons followed up his double at the last of the qualifiers by winning two of the age classes at the Eventing Ireland Western Region/Sealac eventing starter series final at Milchem Equestrian on Easter Monday.

Ballinasloe-based Gibbons, who had ridden three horses at Tyrella on Saturday (finishing second in the EI110 on Milchem Miami), first claimed the Liam Lynskey and Matt Gordon-sponsored Derryronane Stud final for five-year-olds on the traditionally-bred Irish Sport Horse gelding Ballyj Ed.

The bay son of the Irish Draught stallion Black Hero was only lying seventh on 57.7 marks after Jane Whitaker’s judging of the dressage phase but topped Sally Parkyn’s scores for jumping performance on 44.5. As he recorded one of eight clear rounds in the 19-runner class (four combinations were eliminated) and so earned the full 50 marks, he completed on a total of 152.2.

Ballyj Ed is owned by Gibbons’s aunt, the dressage coach and competitor Sinead McGrath and her husband Fintan who bred the winner at their Ballyjennings Stables near Ballinrobe and thus picked up the extra TIHA and HSI-sponsored prizes. He is out of the Pilsudski mare Memories of Emly who pulled up in all three of her point-to-point starts in March 2015. Gibbons won the four-year-old Discovery class with Ballyj Ed last autumn.

From Scotland, but based at the Watervalley Stud in Ballinasloe, Duncan McFadyen finished second on the traditionally-bred ISH mare Ardville Clover Lilly (151.1), a bay by Loughehoe Guy, with the home-based Jason Doerflinger slotting into third on the ISH gelding Milchem Echo (149.7), a son of Musical Pursuit.

Gibbons, who was also fourth there on his own Bonita’s Influence (149.1), had an even better result in the 14-runner six and seven-year-old class as he narrowly landed this on the dressage winner, his mother Marie Dunne’s Kilnamac Kasu (155.6), and finished second on the performance winner, Liam Lynskey’s DS Conn Boy (155.5), a son of Derryronane Stud’s Holstein stallion DS Are You With Me.

Kilnamac Kasu, who was bred in Co Tipperary by James Ryan out of the Cruising mare Kilnamac Sue, is a Kannan half-brother to the Lux Z mare Electric Lux (CCI4*-S) while his dam is a full-sister to Joseph Murphy’s London Olympics ride, Electric Cruise. The six-year-old was placed twice at EI90 level last season, competed in the young event horse final at Dublin and, on Saturday, jumped a double clear in the EI100 at Tyrella.