NUTTS Corner-based show horse producer Jamie Smyth maintained his excellent seasonal form at the Royal Highland Show, which ran from last Thursday week through to Sunday, right beside Edinburgh Airport.

Riding for stable principal Debbie Harrod, Smyth recorded his biggest success with the traditionally bred Irish Sport Horse gelding My Diamond Solitaire, on whom he first won the HOYS middleweight ridden hunter class. He also won the HOYS lightweight class on the ISH gelding Bannside Dancer, the six-year-old Legaland Darco bay bred by his grandfather, Samuel Smyth.

Putting sentimentality aside, Smyth decided to partner My Diamond Solitaire in the ridden hunter championship, where he took the title ahead of the Sinead Healion-bred small hunter class winner, Annaghmore Huntress, an eight-old ISH mare by OBOS Quality 004, who was ridden by Scotland’s Kirsty Douglas.

These two combinations then moved on to the overall ridden hunter supreme championship, which they dominated and where they finished in the same order, much to the delight of Smyth who first produced My Diamond Solitaire on the showing scene for his Crossgar breeder, Karen King. The Balief Guy bay is out of the Bright Diamonds mare, Diamonds Joy.

Another title which went the way of the Nutts Corner yard was that of champion riding horse, Smyth first winning the ‘large’ class on Harrod’s seven-year-old ISH gelding King Of Clubs, a Riverland Roi bay, who was also champion at Balmoral.

“The plan had been to go to Royal Cheshire and the Lincolnshire show en route, but then we decided to come straight here and that worked out very well,” said Smyth. “I love the Royal Highland and their show days are very well run.”