DROPPING broodmare entries numbers - bar the fully-subscribed Clarecastle Banner Broodmare championship - have been par for the course this summer, with a ‘strong’ class now considered half-a-dozen mares.

Will we see an upswing in the Coote Cup broodmare classes on Saturday morning?

Without a list of entries, it is more guesswork as to the eventual numbers but what we do know is the prize money. It will be interesting to see what impact it has in enticing entries.

Sponsored by Plusvital, the broodmare and foal classes are also supported by Horse Sport Ireland and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Entries cost €285 for RDS members; €325 otherwise. First prize in the three broodmare classes? €595, with an additional €470 and €205 for the Coote Cup broodmare champion and reserve.

First-placed foals in the colt and filly classes win €160 while the most lucrative jackpot is the thoroughbred-sired or foal out of a thoroughbred dam class where the top prize is €3,000.

Two previous Coote Cup champions definitely not returning are Patrick Wafer’s retired Parkmore Evita and Paul Cleary’s late Fassagh Lady.

We do know that last year’s Coote Cup champion and reserve mares - John Roche’s Assagart Fairytale and Liam Lynskey’s DS Bounce With Me Baby - are back to defend their titles.

The M11 motorway between Foulksmills and D4 will become very familiar to Roche who has a total of four mares (some with foals at foot) entered for Saturday.

Assagart Faithful (Coroner) is in the opening middleweight/heavyweight mare class, alongside stable companion Assagart Velvet (Colin Diamond), while Assagart Fairytale and Assagart Harmony, (both also by Coroner), are in the lightweight and stinted classes respectively.

Dual entries

Yvonne Pearson’s Kief Queen B (Munther) and Paula Howard’s Dernahatten Out Of Touch (Bienamado), broodmare champion and reserve at Balmoral in May, are dual-entered. Both qualified for The Irish Field Breeders’ Championship which takes place next Friday.

As has Paddy and Richard Gildea’s Miss Cranny Lancelot (Lancelot), last year’s lightweight broodmare class winner.

Both she and Ballykelly Sport Horses have foals by the 2022 Croker Cup champion Gibeon for that TB-sired foal class and Ballykelly Take 5’s dam Ballykelly Jasmine (Gortfree Hero) is also in the heavyweight mare class.

Liam Lynskey’s DS Bounce With Me Baby (Moylough Bouncer), is entered in both the stinted broodmare and middleweight hunter classes.

Slotted in between the mare classes are three foal classes, although lacking from the programme is an overall foal championship.

It’s a traditional judging combination of two UK judges for the Coote Cup classes in Stuart Campbell, from Leicestershire and Michael Maryan from Sussex.

Exhibitors and spectators will be hoping for a more timely conclusion to this year’s Coote Cup classes than last year’s marathon session, but if you miss the championship, the champion and reserve mare will be in Sunday’s parade in the main arena.