Fortune once again favoured Athenry Show’s brave move to its May date when a sweltering Sunday brought out another bumper crowd. Even the Galway vs Kilkenny hurling match did not adversely affect attendance and although the ‘Cats’ lost out in Salthill, the county scored one win in the west when Dermott Molloy’s three-year-old Showman (Prescotts Diamond) was the Irish Draught champion.

“He stood out and I wish that a lot of people buying Draughts would look for a horse like him, that’s what an Irish Draught looks like, not a horse with light legs. That’s a half-bred,” said judge Cyril McDermott.

CHAMPIONSHIPS

McDermott also judged the coloured horse championship, won by Martin Skehill with his unusually-marked mare Keen Eye (Monard Showtime) which he aims to hunt next season with the Grallagh Harriers. In reserve was Loretta Niland’s Boondoggle, who was having his first outing.

In the adjoining Connemara ring, Caoilfhinn O’Malley’s Glenlo Lady (Laerkens Cascade Dawn) repeated her Newmarket-on-Fergus championship success in the senior championship.

Judge Cathy Snow Coyne’s reserve champion was Grace McDonagh’s Kilmeen Jane (Cloonisle Cashel) previously owned by the late Breda Horan. The junior champion was Katie Curran’s Glencarrig Princess Katie (Glencarrig Knight).

Ian Murphy’s Ava’s Delight (Clonakilty Hero) was the Irish Draught reserve champion. However he went one better in a drawn-out young horse section, with his two-year-old Barnaview Misty River (Chillout), ahead of another Mayo owner Liam Lynskey’s year-older filly Greenhall Carrera (Dignified Van’t Zorgvlieft).

RIDDEN CLASSES

Andrew Gardiner and Maura Rooney, plus referee judge Jimmy Canavan, were also in charge of the ridden horse classes where the eventual champion was Philip Scott’s small hunter winner SCT Master of Hounds (Castle Rebel).

First-time Athenry exhibitor Chloe Lacey’s journey from Wicklow paid off when Woodrow All Gold won the show hunter championship ahead of Catriona Glynn’s Yealand Pilgrim, while there was a family double when sisters Jane and Lara Field won the working hunter and mini pony titles with Creganna Dandini and Glandrine Pied Piper.