Three years after he and his dam Assagart My Only Hope won The Irish Field Breeders’ Championship for the Roche family and hours before she repeated that success with his full-brother at foot, Assagart Lord Lancer made a triumphant Ring 1 return to win the young horse title. Reserve in this championship as a two-year-old, the Castleforbes Lord Lancer grey went all the way this year to land the Laidlaw Cup for his delighted connections. “My father (Michael) won it but this is the first time I have”, said John Roche who owns the horse in partnership with his mother Mary Margaret.

They will also take the Pembroke Cup back to Foulksmills having won this owner-bred championship for a second successive year, ahead of another Wexford-bred in Margaret Jeffares’s Ballykelly Eva.

Overall reserve

The young horse judges, bloodstock agent Anthony Stroud and racehorse trainer Jonathan Geake, stayed with their three-year-old winners when Flogas Liqueur was then brought forward as their overall reserve.

Owned in partnership by Tiernan Gill and longtime family friend Felim Clarke, the Barnaby Flight bay had swept through Friday morning’s earlier classes having won both the filly and traditional-bred championships. Bred by Derry Rothwell, she was the three-year-old reserve champion to Roche’s horse the previous day.

The younger age champions were Hughie and Mary Murphy’s yearling Barnaview Misty River, a Chillout full-sister to previous winner here Corniche Chill and Pat Martin and Dorothy Walsh’s Royal Highland champion Superior Choice, an Emperor Augustus two-year-old. Their Master’s Choice, by Kings Master, was the traditionally-bred reserve champion to Flogas Liqueur.

Standing reserve in the age division championships were Ann Lyons’s yearling Emir’s Flight, one of several Dublin champions to change hands at Dublin. This Elusive Emir flashy chestnut, shown by young Aidan Williamson who also scored with John Tyner’s two-year-old winner Bullseye, was bought by Jill Day.

Robert Davis, who owned last year’s Laidlaw champion Emperors Touch, now also in Day’s string, had the reserve two-year-old champion in another Emperor Augustus offspring; Corran Emperor.