JAMIE Smyth was on fire on the opening day of Dublin Horse Show winning two championships within the space of four hours. Following his win in the Brooklands Bedding riding horse championship, the first of the titles decided in Ring 1, he followed up with the Thorntons Recycling small hunter crown.

This time it was with Ryan Anderson’s Highview Overado, a Goresbridge Sales buy last September. Bred by Seamus Leacy Jnr, he has a very attractive eventing pedigree, being by Cavalier Land out of Redinagh Black Jack, by the Swedish-bred Jack Of Diamonds.

Champion novice horse at the Northern Ireland Festival, he continued his winning run with the Balmoral small hunter title and despite some offers, the connections’ plan is to keep the four-year-old grey for another season.

Also going forward to the championship from this four/five-year-old class was second-placed Courtown Grandpa’s Girl, another four-year-old, another bred in Co Wexford, in this case by Lorcan Allen and another by Model County-based stallions, as she is by Grandpa’s Rebel out of a Grange Bouncer dam.

Piloted by owner Melissa O’Connor Murphy’s daughter Jessica, this team won a matching blue ribbon in the following class for six-year-olds and over with their French-bred Darcy de Chanteloube. The winner here was Caroline McParland, who had shown Violet Scott’s Ballysheil Queen to win the 1988 Breeders’ Championship. Now back in the saddle, she won with the purebred Draught Harkway Hooligan, bred by Gabriel Nohilly, a six-year-old by Harkaway Lionhawk out of a Mourne Mountain Star dam.

With Jessica opting to stay on board Darcy de Chanteloube, Ivan Ryan stepped aboard Courtown Grandpa’s Girl and was Guy Landau and Tuffy Tilley’s reserve champion choice.