THERE were two types of owners/riders who sought qualification for next Wednesday morning’s APCOA performance Irish Draught championships at the Dublin Horse Show, those promoting their horses for sale and those wishing to ride their horse of a lifetime at the Ballsbridge showgrounds.

As usual, the qualifiers produced a mixture of both types with the amateurs who didn’t progress to the final being the more disappointed, some having competed at each of the qualifiers which were held at the four Young Eventhorse Series venues. A total of 75 combinations competed at Forth Mountain on Saturday, June 25th with that number dropping to 49 at both Tullylish (July 9th) and Rincoola (July 23rd).

There were 61 starters on Saturday, July 16th at Scarteen where two stallions, DS Ballagh Bouncer and Dennistown Price Of Pride topped the leaderboard on the same score in the first division of the older horse class while Jimmy Quinn’s home-bred five-year-old Cappa Cassanova stallion Cappa Capone did so in division two of the four and five-year-old class. North Co Dublin’s Laura Snow qualified her home-bred six-year-old Gortfree Hero stallion Drynam Hero at Tullylish.

Thanks to the organisers of YES, Irish Draught enthusiasts had the opportunity last year to qualify for the RDS national championships which had their finals in August at Lambertstown. There the oldest horse to compete, the 2005 Blue Rajah gelding Lachain Blue Boy (258 points), finished third behind Gneeve King William (271) and the Gill Crawford-partnered Peters Pride (267).

Ridden by Craughwell’s Amanda Fahy for former Ryder Cup player Eamonn Darcy, Lachain Blue Boy, who was second at Dublin in 2019 and fifth in 2014, disappointingly failed to qualify this year.

As usual, there are those would like to see a flat ridden Irish Draught section at Dublin with the one at Balmoral in May attracting an entry of 21 four and five-year-olds and 10 older horses.