CAITIE Slater didn’t compete at Millstreet this year, preferring to remain at Belline Equestrian preparing Richard Ames’s string of four and five-year-olds for Tuesday’s first leg of the Young Eventhorse Series (YES!) at Forth Mountain.

Her dedication paid off when she won Section A of the four-year-olds on Belline Special Lady (287.9 points), a Pointilliste bay bred in Co Kilkenny by Roberta Dowley out of the OBOS Quality 004 mare Queen Victoria OBS. This mare finished third in the Stepping Stones League behind her ISH stable-companions Belline Jack The Lad and Belline Newton Douglas who both competed on Tuesday.

Getting the full 10 marks for thoroughbred blood greatly aided the David Furlong-owned and ridden Thistletown Delboy booking his RDS ticket when second of the 26 starters on 286. This unraced Watar gelding is out of the Silver Patriarch mare Two T’Three Weeks, a half-sister to the 10-time winner Scots Grey (by Terimon).

Ames’s above-mentioned home-bred Sligo Candy Boy gelding Belline Jack The Lad (285.7 points) also qualified for Dublin when second in Section B under Robbie Kearns. The bay was marginally beaten into the runner-up spot by Emma Jackson on Roy Shields’s home-bred ISH mare Rockrimmon Legacy (285.8). This daughter of Rockrimmon Senator out of Rockrimmon Flying Solo (by Sir Shutterfly) already has 11 Show Jumping Ireland points to her credit.

Also from Co Down, Gwen Scott secured a ticket when third in this 26-strong class with P.J. and Lorcan Glynn’s Crannaghmore Going For One (283.4), a Loughehoe Guy bay bred by Padraig Connaughton out of the Cavalier Royale mare Naz.

Most impressive

Totally dominant in the Stepping Stones League and victor of his performance horse championship at Balmoral, Richard Ames’s Kief Rhapsody (329.1) ran out a most impressive winner of Section A of the five-year-olds under regular partner Noel Dunne. By Sligo Candy Boy, the bay ISH is out of Kieran Fahey’s Lux Z mare Lissangle Lux The Business who was a multiple winner in the show ring and won twice and was placed many times under Eventing Ireland rules.

Some distance adrift in second, but also booking his RDS ticket first time out this season, was the ISH gelding MBF Corbeagh (314.6) who is ridden and produced by Nicola Ennis for US resident Carrie Meehan. By Quidam Junior, this fellow is also out of a Lux Z mare, in this instance Patrick and Mary Murphy’s Corbeagh Lux Good.

There were 20 starters in that division and 23 in Section B where three horses qualified for Dublin. Topping the leaderboard on 315.6 points was the Dominic Furnell-owned and ridden ISH mare Ballycahane Silver Athena. Another by the thoroughbred stallion Pointilliste, this home-bred grey was traditionally-bred being out of the Gurrane Zidane mare Ballycahane Silver Vixen who won and was placed at EI110 level.

Chloe Fagan, who had been well-placed after dressage in the CCI3*-L at Millstreet only to drop down the order when Comte Ligniere Z glanced off one of the cross-country fences, qualified in second with Charlie Walshe’s thoroughbred gelding Gervada (312.5). This Vadamos bay, who ran once as a three-year-old when in training with Ciaran Murphy, won the thoroughbred section of both the Stepping Stones League and the Western Region’s eventing starter series.

Third in the Stepping Stones League, the ISH gelding Baby I’m A Star filled the same position on Tuesday on 311.5 points. The son of Ulysses M2S is ridden by Daniel Alderson for Emma O’Shea who bred the bay out of her Flagmount Diamond mare Saddle Up Kasey who did a small amount of affiliated show jumping and eventing.