LOCALLY-based Cian McGee had the pleasure of partnering his own Carlton Gardens to win the Treo Eile thoroughbred class on his dressage score of 29 penalties at the Stepping Stones to Success League at Wexford Equestrian on Wednesday.

This was a great performance on the part of horse and rider as the British-bred gelding ran in an extended 10-furlong apprentice race on the all-weather at Dundalk in mid-October last year. He was then having the second of two outings for Tony Mullins having been previously trained by Gavin Cromwell and before that by Joseph O’Brien.

By the great Sea The Stars, Carlton Gardens is out of the unraced Dansili mare Raskutani who is the dam of seven winners. He cost €150,000 as a yearling. He failed to get placed in 13 starts.

Hazel Burke finished second on Wednesday on her own 10-year-old Golden Lariat gelding Menacing Stare (29.3) with Patricia Newman travelling over from the west to place third with her own 10-year-old Campaign Swing gelding Cry Of The Dream (36).

John Tilley and Goldberg’s Sister Act winners of the four-year-old class at the first leg of the Stepping Styones league \ Tadhg Ryan Bit-Media

The event pony class, sponsored by Doagh Equestrian, was won by Debbie Flavin on board Geraldine Power’s Connemara gelding Pine View Ice Cool (54.8), a five-year-old Ice And Fire d’Albran grey who was bred by Sharon Walsh out of the Coill Rua Champ mare Cool Secret.

Stepping Stones regular Pauline Dahill finished second with another Connemara gelding, her mother Joan’s home-bred five-year-old Inisowen bay Glencairn Fredrick (50.7) with Anne Burns placing third with yet another five-year-old Connemara but in this case a mare, her own Silver Shadow grey Glenrock Sparrow.