JOHN Kiely’s Limerick hurling team will bid for their fifth All-Ireland title in-a-row in Croke Park this summer. As the Treaty County has proved lucky for John Bannon, the Meath owner will hope for similar Dublin success after topping the first of this year’s RDS potential event horse qualifiers, held at Newcastle West.

Bannon had qualified his two previous Dublin final winners – by VDL Orestus (2022) and Vivant van de Heffinck (2023) – at this same venue.

The potential event horse class for three-year-olds was the original brainchild of the Leonard family, a concept that was later taken up by the RDS, which allocates two qualifying slots to Newcastle West.

Running the qualifier as a standalone event at Terence Leonard’s Ballynoe farm, before tomorrow’s agricultural show (Sunday), meant a slickly-run event and relaxed atmosphere, with spectators basking in rare sunshine.

Some 33 of 36 entries turned out for the Nicky Roncoroni and Rodney O’Donnell-judged qualifier where Bannon’s recently-purchased three-year-old gelding topped a tightly-grouped scoresheet.

His winner, bred by William Kennedy, is by the OBOS Quality 004 son, Lagans OBOS Quality and out of the Maltstriker-Clover Hill mare KEC Malta Safari.

John Bannon’s Lagans OBOS Quality three-year-old topped the Newcastle West qualifier for Dublin’s potential event horse final \ Claire Nolan

Taking the second Dublin slot was Wexford man Ado Moran’s Tomgar Valour, one of two Imnotafraid Fortuna offspring in the Newcastle West top-three. Moran’s runner-up was bred by Walter Kent and this gelding is out of Overton Whitby, by the Wexford family’s own Irish Draught stallion Lansdown.

Third place went to the second of the Dallas VDL-sired Imnotafraid Fortuna’s entries. Grennanstown My High Hopes is owned by John Nicholas and is another Dublin final contender sourced by the Murroe man from Nenagh breeder, Geraldine Flynn.

Newcastle West’s move to an earlier show date this summer meant that the Limerick opportunity preceded the nationwide qualifiers held at Top Flight, County Clare Showgrounds in Ennis, Tubberbride, Ross House and Kernan’s equestrian centres this week. Several of last Friday’s owners intended to continue on the campaign trail for Dublin.

“Friday evening highlighted all that is great about our horse industry. We had a great turnout of young horse producers in Ireland, all aiming for the golden ticket to the Dublin Horse Show,” commented Newcastle West Show chairman Liam Ruttle.

“All the spectators were given a great display as each horse was put through their paces and marked by our excellent judges. We had great quality on display and only half a mark separated the two horses that qualified for Dublin and just 2.5 marks separated the top-six.”

High standard

Gowran-based Nicky Roncoroni, who competed Trig Point (Ghareeb) at Nations Cup and five-star level, was impressed by the standard, saying: “It was very good across the board and some standout performances obviously gave us our winners. Overall, the standard was very, very high, and it was nice to see a few raw horses as well. It’s early enough in the season for them and they weren’t overly produced, so we were certainly very thoughtful of that.”

When asked about changing horse types for modern eventing, she replied: “I think you definitely need two different types of horses for the sport that we have nowadays. For the really big five-stars, I still think you need good, proper, old-fashioned blood horses. Our winner today was very much that sort of stamp.

“And then the second and third placed-horses, were very much more modern-day sport horses, but all of them had good technique. One would like to hope we’ll see them at the top of their sport in a few years’ time, as they all had the qualities that we want to see in event horses: athleticism, step, attitude and aptitude for learning. So all of those things were taken into consideration when we were judging.”

Ballynoe’s all-weather arena was ideal for the event, however for co-judge Rodney O’Donnell, who runs the popular Hillcrest fixture “only half an hour away” in Galbally, weather and ground conditions have played havoc.

“We lost the first show because of the weather. The second, we just about got it and the next one is in August. This spring was a disaster, but the spring has been tough for the last two years. If the weather is bad on the weekend that you’re running an event, forget it.”