IT was a glorious spring day when the 2025 Stepping Stones to Success Eventing League got under way at Wexford Equestrian on Wednesday.

With five horses to ride in the two Childeric Saddles age classes, John Tilley probably didn’t spend too much time thinking about the weather, never mind discussing the great display of daffodils around the busy Tomhaggard venue of Pat Peare and Orla Roche where a free day is a wasted day.

A winner of the EI115 at Tyrella recently on the 11-year-old Licence To Cooley, Tilley’s skills with young horses came to the fore on Wednesday as he won the five-year-old class on the Irish Sport Horse gelding Borris Cornet Coole and the four-year-old class with an as yet unnamed ISH mare by Dignified van’t Zorgvliet. The pair were both listed as being owned by Tilley’s partner Andrew Williams who is very much the spokesperson for the pair’s Kilkenny International operation.

For the first two weeks of the league, the results are decided on dressage scores and jumping penalties and Tilley led throughout to complete on his Marie Hennessy-judged flat work mark of 53.3. Fraser Duffy finished second with Nadia Scott’s ISH gelding Sportsfield Cool Hutch (52.2), a Coolkeeran bay out of a Womanizer mare, with Louise Bloomer placing third on Jinnie Webb’s ISH gelding September Moon (52), an Ulatermo bay from the family of the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Charter Party.

Borris Cornet Coole, who is a member of the first crop of Castlefield Cornet, is out of the Warrenstown You 2 mare Miss Too Coole and is thus a half-brother to the Cobra mare MGH Jessica (CCI3*-L). He was bred by Joe and Jerry Skelton who consigned the bay to the 2023 Goresbridge September Sale where he made the top price of €20,000.

Williams gave a brief account of Borris Cornet Code’s 2024 season. “He won the HSI final, the young event horse Discovery final at Millstreet and was third at Dublin. This was his first outing of the season and he will do another leg or two of this league before having a break and then being aimed at the Dublin qualifiers. He will then do a few proper events.”

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

In the Childeric Saddles four-year-old class, Tilley likewise competed on his dressage score (50.3). Here he saw off the challenge of Ellen Treacy on David Bourke and Mary Fenelon’s ISH gelding Enniskerry Echo (49.6), a Sligo Candy Boy bay out of a Watermill Swatch mare, and Tom Hayden with Sinead Brennan’s home-bred ISH gelding A Dignified Approach (49.2), a son of Dignified van’t Zorgvliet out of an Aquilino mare.

Given the name Goldberg’s Sister Act for Wednesday, the winner was bred by Nick Cousins out of the point-to-point-winning Saddlers’ Hall mare Mrs Hall who comes from the family of the Grade 1-winning hurdler Refinement. She too came from a sale, in her case last year’s Monart Sale where she was astutely purchased for €7,500.

“I was really delighted with the mare as this was her first time out,” said Williams. “She too will do a couple more of these and we’ll see where we go from there. We’ve got eight horses in total for this Stepping Stones league.”