TWO representatives of James O’Haire’s Hawthorn Farm qualified at Forth Mountain on Tuesday for the Junior/Young Rider event horse class at the Dublin Horse Show in August.

Booking his ticket as the winner of Section B was O’Haire’s son Jack, who accumulated a score of 297.5 points on the Irish Sport Horse mare Silk Chiffon, who has been placed twice at EI100 level and has done a small amount of registered jumping. The Quite Zero grey, who is owned by the yard’s longtime supporter Patricia Heffernan, was bred in Co Waterford by Margaret Curran out of the Cassini II mare Casino Royale.

It’s a busy period for O’Haire Junior, who is sitting his Leaving Cert and dividing his time between home and Michael and Patricia Ryan’s Bandon yard. Fortunately, for everyone, he got a car for his 18th birthday and passed his driving test four days before the State exams commenced.

Ben Cousins, who seems to be everywhere these days, filled the runner-up slot on Lawrence Patterson’s already qualified six-year-old ISH gelding Bonmahon Triophant (287.5), with the second qualifying ticket going to Kate Horgan, who finished third (287) on her mother Hannah’s ISH gelding Highview Shakespeare.

Two days earlier, Horgan and the five-year-old Lagans OBOS Quality bay, who have yet to compete under Eventing Ireland rules, finished second in their Intermediate working hunter class at an Irish Pony Society show in Killossery Lodge Stud.

Experienced

In contrast to Horgan, Amy Ennis Crosbie has plenty of EI experience behind her and, at Rosanna (3) earlier in the month, won an EI110 (J) on the thoroughbred gelding Herobrine. On the same day, the Howth rider finished seventh in the EI100 (J) on CBI Joker, who she partnered to victory on 293 points in Section A of the Junior/Young Rider event horse qualifier here on Tuesday.

Registered with the Warmblood Studbook of Ireland and owned, like Herobrine, by the rider’s mother Suzanne, the six-year-old Tyson gelding was bred by Carroll Brothers Ireland, out of the Indoctro mare CBI Dreamland.

Hawthorn Farm-based Emma Egan claimed the second qualifying ticket on her own ISH mare, who goes by the lengthy name of My Blue Valentine by HSH (291.5). This Triomphe De Muze bay, who finished fifth in the DAFM EI100 for five-year-olds at Ballindenisk last Sunday, was purchased unbroken by Egan and James O’Haire as a project to sell on. However, having shown so much potential, that plan was cancelled and Egan bought out O’Haire to produce the mare herself.