RICHARD Ames’ domination of young event horse classes began early in the year, continued through the summer months and was dramatically underlined last weekend at the Ballindenisk International Horse Trials.

Five ‘Belline’ horses represented Ames in the Michael Leonard CCI1*-Intro for five and six-year-olds, of whom three filled the top three spots on the final leaderboard on Saturday evening. Setting the pace throughout was the Robbie Kearns-partnered, brilliantly-named Belline Thistle Bethelasttime (Grafenstolz x Kannan) on a dressage score of 28.3.