BE it racing or any other equestrian sport, owning a top-class home-bred mare is particularly satisfying, so Kate Jarvey had every reason to be delighted when Diamond Mistress recorded her first international success in the Kiernan’s Garden Centre CCI2*-S at Ballindenisk last Sunday.

The second of two winners at the Co Cork event by the Holstein stallion Diarado, the seven-year-old Irish Sport Horse, who is out of the Master Imp mare Shes My Master (CCI3*-S), was ridden as usual by Mallow’s Sian Coleman, who seems to have a special affinity with Jarvey-owned mares. This present combination first came to prominence when winning the four-year-old young event horse class at the Covid-affected RDS national equestrian championships at Lambertstown in August 2021.

Since going eventing in April 2022, the plan has always been to produce Diamond Mistress slowly. She had six starts that first season, winning a 26-strong EI100 at Kilguilkey House in August and finishing the campaign with a second-place finish in the HSI Michael Leonard CCI1*-Intro here at Ballindenisk the following month. They only won once also in 2023 (in an EI110, again at Kilguilkey House in August), but finished fourth of 48 in a CCIYH2-S at Jardy in July and second of 105 in a CCIYH2*-S at Cornbury House in September.

With a small number of time penalties in both jumping phases, they rounded off the season when 25th of 46 in the CCI2*-L for six-year-olds at Le Lion d’Angers in October and started this term on the road again, travelling to Thoresby Park, where it was time once more that saw them place 49th of 95 in the CCI2*-S. A return to the world championships for young horses in France is very much an end-of-season target for the mare, with a more immediate goal being the CCI2*-S at Chatsworth this month. “We are in no hurry to move her up to three-star,” said Coleman. “We will have the whole summer to get her Le Lion qualifications.”

In the lead

On their second start of the season here at Ballindenisk, Coleman and Diamond Mistress led after dressage on 25.4 penalties and then show jumped clear on Saturday. “Being in the lead on Sunday meant I had to go for it,” said the rider. “The time was really tight, so I put my foot down. It wasn’t one of my tidiest rounds, and I was a second over, but we finished well clear of the remainder. The show jumping track was nice and the cross-country was great for this time of the year, asking plenty of questions.”

Three competitors, all Irish, completed on their first phase scores, the highest-placed of these being Junior rider Lucy McDowell, who finished second on her father Michael’s ISH mare Glenvine Codename R (31.8), a nine-year-old bay by Tolan R. Co Meath’s Elizabeth Power picked up 2.4 costly cross-country time penalties to place third on her own and Ivan Hatton’s ISH gelding Balladeer Clintender (34.5), an eight-year-old son of Kah Clintender.

One of the 29 starters retired across the country, one was withdrawn before that final phase and one was eliminated show jumping.