DUNS have always been popular at the Goresbridge Go For Gold Sale and one such hued gelding sure to attract attention at next month’s renewal is Lot 1, Sharon Power’s Grantstown Dun And Dusted, who brought up a CCI1*-Intro double under Patrick Whelan at Ballindenisk last weekend.

The Mermus R six-year-old, who was lying third after dressage (30 penalties), completed on his flatwork mark, as did just three others in the 33-runner, all-Irish rider field. These were the fourth, fifth and sixth-placed combinations of Katie McKee and the 11-year-old Summit (36.1), Katie Robinson with the seven-year-old Ophelia Cruise (37.5) and Ella Doddy on the 11-year-old Herald Of Milltown (37.9).

Happily for Lesley Jones and David Raeburn, penalties accrued in the show jumping phase didn’t affect their finishing positions. Riding Yvonne Pearson’s well-known show horse/working hunter Quality Choice, a seven-year-old OBOS Quality 004 gelding who was having just his seventh start in an event, Jones picked up 0.8 of a time penalty to finish second on 32.2, while Raeburn had a pole down with his 10-year-old Chillout gelding Chilled Bud, but still placed third (35.6). There were only eight show jumping clears inside the time.

Lovely sort

“This horse isn’t overbig, but he’s a lovely sort,” said Whelan of Grantstown Dun And Dusted, who started this season with EI90 wins at Crecora and Hillcrest and, on his dressage score, finished fourth of 22 in the CCI1*-Intro at Kilguilkey House in late June.

“We could have put him by after Lisgarvan (international), but I said to Sharon that, all being well, we could win again here and so it proved. "Sharon likes to buy a young horse to produce to novice and then sell on, which is why this fellow is heading to the Go For Gold.”

Grantstown Dun And Dusted, who was bred in Co Waterford by Caroline Widger, is the first produce registered on CapallOir out of the 2010 Connemara mare Lisrua Misty (by Coral Misty’s Bobby).

The ground jury for this class comprised Ireland’s Marie Hennessy (C) and Australia’s Emma Ferguson (E), who had joint-leaders after the flatwork phase on 27.9 penalties, Co Westmeath’s Maeve Deverell and Co Antrim’s Lucca Stubington.

Deverell, the international pony dressage rider who is in her first season competing with Eventing Ireland, was on board the home-bred Annaharvey Dunowen, her father Sam’s 11-year-old ISH gelding by Radolin. The vastly more experienced Stubington rode Martin Wilson’s ISH mare Roundthorn Minerva, a seven-year-old daughter of Eldorado van de Zeshoek, who was placed in her three EI100 starts.

Both combinations maintained their positions at the head of affairs following a clear apiece in Saturday morning’s show jumping phase. However, first of the pair across the country, Stubington retired Roundthorn Minerva following a refusal at the avenue fence (eight) and another at the third element of the third water (fence 13ABC) while Deverell and Annaharvey Dunowen parted company at the first part of the NutriScience hop, skip and a jump (fence 11AB).

There was one elimination for an unseating at the first water (7AB) and another for a similar separation at part two of the second (9AB). One pair retired as early as the first of the cottages (3AB), the first of eight combination fences on the track. There were very few other problems in jumping on the final leg. One horse was withdrawn after dressage.