THE busy Louise Daly (ride) will join Tuffy Tilley (conformation) to judge the Dublin Horse Show’s sole coloured horse class in Ring 1 next Friday evening, following the completion of the dressage phase of the Pony Club combined training section.

Cappoquin exhibitors Sharon and Brian Hallahan have won the past two runnings of this class with SBS Touch Of Colour (2019) and SBS Da Vinci’s Masterpiece (2022), the latter finishing ahead of Clare Adair’s far more simply-named Dot and Louise and Alanna Popa’s 2022 Balmoral winner, Sir Dollar.

Also from Co Waterford, the Popas were foiled in their bid to follow up at this year’s Royal Ulster Agricultural Show in May when their 15-year-old skewbald gelding had to settle for second behind the Sharon Hallahan-ridden SBS Da Vinci Masterpiece, a seven-year-old home-bred mare by SBS Da Vinci.

Bloodstock agent Cathy Grassick, chairperson of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association, is very much looking forward to Dublin where Emily MacMahon rides her Kildangan Stud-bred Kildangan Bellatrix, a five-year-old skewbald mare who won at both the Tattersalls July Show and the Flavours of Fingal County Show at Newbridge House last month.