WE’VE seen John Roche celebrate championship successes at the Dublin Horse Show so we can well imagine how excited he became at home in Assagart last Friday when Its On The Line won the Irish Daily Star Champion Hunters Chase at Punchestown.

While John shows and breeds non-thoroughbred horses with his mother Mary Margaret, it was with his wife Catherine that he bred Its On the Line who is trained by Emmet Mullins for the CCR Racing Syndicate. Only a six-year-old, the Presenting gelding was partnered on Friday by the most successful point-to-point rider of all time, Derek O’Connor, as he was when finishing second in the St James’s Place Festival Hunters’ Chase at Cheltenham in March.

Its On The Line, the winner also of two other hunter chases and two open point-to-points, was bred by the Roches out of the now deceased Accordion mare Ten Dollar Bill who was dam of three other winners headed by Monbeg Dude. That 2005 Witness Box gelding, who was bred by Hilary O’Connor, won a trio of Grade 3 races, including the Welsh Grand National, and, on his final start, was third in the 2015 Aintree Grand National.

John couldn’t attend Punchestown on Friday as he is waiting on numerous mares to foal including Its On The Line’s year-older unraced Fame And Glory half-sister, Give Me A Dollar, who is carrying to Ice Breeze. “I was disappointed that I couldn’t go but was delighted with the win all the same. You need results like these to keep things going and my mother got a great kick out of it,” said the Co Wexford breeder/producer who will definitely make sure he can attend next week’s Balmoral Show where he will be exhibiting mares and foals and youngstock.

Scored

Another Wexford man who has won at Dublin and was on the scoresheet at Punchestown last week was former Killinick hunt chase team member Benny Walsh.

On Tuesday, he was second in the Kildare Hunt Club Cross Country Chase for the Ladies Cup on the Richard O’Keeffe-trained Vital Island who he partnered to victory two days later in the Mongey Communications La Touche Cup Cross Country Chase. In the first of those races, where she was making her cross-country racecourse debut, Wexford event rider Joanne Corish had a great spin around on the French-bred mare Bonny Dazzler who is trained for her father Thomas by Mark Scallan.

On Saturday, the John McConnell-trained Seddon followed up his win at the Cheltenham Festival in March by landing the Fitzwilliam Sports Handicap Hurdle (Grade B). The 10-year-old Stowaway gelding was once again ridden by former Ward Union Pony Club member Ben Harvey while his owners, the Galaxy Horse Racing Syndicate, include the recently-appointed CEO of the Irish Pony Club, Sharon Monahan.