FOR the second year running, the winner of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association racehorse to riding horse class at Balmoral Show was the former Warren Ewing-trained Easy Pleased.

The six-year-old Mahler gelding was chosen as the winner last year by Willie Mullins and Richard Johnson and, last week, topped the line-up of Paul Carberry and Noel Meade. The bay only ran once for Ewing, unseating his rider five out in a four-year-old maiden at Tattersalls in November 2021.

The plan is for Easy Pleased to commence eventing during the summer, the delay to the start of his new career being explained here by Ballyclare’s Felicity McConnell who rides the horse for her mother Joyce. She was thrilled to bring up the double at Balmoral where the ring stewards last Thursday evening included Richard Lyttle (chief) and Brian Polly.

“It was fantastic to be able to do it again – ‘Merlo’ never fails to amaze me,” enthused Felicity. “I’m currently in the middle of my AS levels. I’m finished them on June 1st and, after that, I will have more time to get him out schooling and will hopefully get out eventing in July. For the next two weeks he’ll just be taking it easy until I finish my exams.

“My mum groomed for me at the show, doing a fantastic job as usual. She took Merlo to Balmoral in the morning and I stayed at home to revise until lunch time while she got everything sorted.

“Without her I couldn’t do it. We are not 100% sure about doing the Dublin qualifiers as of yet but we probably will try to get there.” This year, the class was scheduled to start at the later time of 5.45pm and was then delayed slightly as the Main Arena had to be cleared.

The ITBA was represented by its CEO Una Tormey plus council member and trustee, Dean Harron. The latter, who represents the Northern Region along with Max Ervine, selected Donaghcloney trainer Suzy Barkley and McQuinn as winners of the best turned-out prize. Suzy trained the 2012 Mr Dinos gelding throughout his racing career which ended in March last year.

Five-time champion O’Neill

THE curtain came down on the Northern Region point-to-point season last Saturday at Taylorstown where Barry O’Neill was crowned regional champion rider for the fifth time in total and the fourth in succession.

Barry partnered three winners during the afternoon although he wasn’t too stressed to land the Boyd Stores Open on Bold Enough as the David Christie-trained, Ray Nicholas-owned Jeremy gelding was gifted a walkover.

Referring to the very useful statistics on p2p.ie, and going back to the year 2000, shortly before the dual seasons came into play, up to 2003/2004, the champions were all regionally-based – Liam Lennon and Warren Ewing (2000), Leo Gracey (2001), Liam Lennon (2001/02) and Brian Hamilton (2002/03 and 2003/04).

Galway’s Derek O’Connor more or less ruled from 2004/05 to 2011/12, although sharing the title with Banbridge’s Mark O’Hare in 2005/06, giving best in 2007/08 to Wexford’s Jamie Codd and sharing the title with Larne’s Ben Crawford in 2011/12. Codd topped the table again in the 2013/14 and 2018/19 seasons but, for a brief period, local riders held sway again, Kilcoo’s Noel McParlan winning in 2012/13, 2014/15 and 2016/17 with Mark O’Hare breaking Noel’s sequence when he was crowned regional champion for a second time in 2015/16.

Looking back even further in time – not in anger but just in interest – from 1982 to 1999 there were just four seasons when a local rider did not record the most wins viz 1983 (Ivon Keeling), 1984 (John ‘Turkey’ Sleator) plus 1985 and 1995 (Tony Martin). In 1986, Paul Larkin shared the top spot with Robert Steele.

This season, Maghera’s Dara McGill finished second on the leaderboard with 10 regional wins to his credit while McParlan had eight to place third.

NOEL McParlan had just two rides at Taylorstown last Saturday, finishing fourth in the Seven Stars five-year-old and upwards mares’ maiden on Task Yourself, who is trained by his father Sean, having landed the preceding Derrylecka Bedding Centre five-year-old geldings’ maiden on Raceview Road.

The Milan bay, who is trained by Gerald Quinn for Philip McBurney, pulled up on his only previous start – at Moira last month – but never looked like faltering on Saturday, scoring by three and a half lengths. Raceview Road’s next engagement will be at the Goffs UK Spring Sale in Doncaster where he is catalogued as Lot 495.

The honour of training the last regional winner of the season fell to Neill McCluskey whose Rust To Riches landed the Philip McCabe Quantity Surveyor older horses’ maiden by one and a half lengths in the hands of Darragh Higgins.

Neill also owns and bred the Shirocco gelding who was winning on his fifth start, all this year, and had been placed third twice (at Tattersalls and Moir) and was second last time out at Toomebridge. The six-year-old is out of the Blueprint mare Blueanna who has bred one three-time track winner (Metersandmasks, a mare by Shirocco) and comes from the family of Kilcash. Rust To Riches was due to run in the extended three-and-a-half-mile hunters’ chase at Downpatrick last evening.

Trained in Co Wexford by Colin Bowe and ridden by Bertie Finn, the Fiona McStay-owned and bred Glens Sensation won division two of the five and six-year-old geldings’ maiden at Ballindenisk on Sunday by three lengths on his third start. The 2018 Mount Nelson bay is the third of six recorded foals, and the second runner, out of the brilliant Glens Melody following the ill-fated Shantou’s Melody.

Glens Sensation is also being consigned to the Spring Sale where he sells as Lot 526.

All six winners at Bratton Down in England last Sunday were bred in Ireland, the Level 3 conditional race for eight-year-olds and upwards going to the Will Biddick-ridden, Teresa Clark-trained Ninth Wave. Bred outside Dundalk by Martin McCaughey, this nine-year-old September Storm gelding is out of the Cloudings mare Royale Pearl.

Also by September Storm, the Chris Honour-trained Shortcross Storm won a three-mile, two-furlong handicap chase at Newton Abbot on Wednesday. The eight-year-old was bred by Neville Reid out of the unraced Taipan mare Lady Leila who is dam of two other track winners.

There were also wins at Clonmel last Thursday for the Kieran Magee-bred five-year-old Battle of Ridgeway (Califet – Scent With Love, by Winged Love), at Ascot last Saturday for the similarly-aged McCracken Farms-bred Coco Bear (Kodi Bear – House Of Roses, by New Approach), at Hamilton on Sunday for the two-year-old newcomer Golden Arrow (Havana Grey – Music Pearl, by Oratorio) who was bred by Brian and Ann Marie Kennedy, and at Perth on Wednesday for the Margaret McCrudden-owned and bred Nowinittowinit (Flemensfirth – Not Its My Turn, by Goldmark), a seven-year-old trained by Stuart Crawford.

While plenty of locally-born jockeys won in the period under review, both over jumps and on the flat, we would just like to mention Barry McHugh who got off the mark for the season when the Adrian Nicholls-trained Crime Fiction landed the concluding five-furlong handicap at Musselburgh on Monday.