This festival sees in excess of 2,000 horses from riding clubs all over Ireland and by Friday evening the 500 stables at Goff's complex are filled and people are setting themselves up for a fun weekend with their horses and friends.

Those stabled on the grounds live either in their lorries or if the weather holds, which it did for Friday and Saturday, the tent city - pictured below - appears all around the showing class rings.

Our photographic coverage only includes Saturday as this was the day we chose to go to Goff's - the sun was shining from a bright blue sky with not a cloud in the sky and it felt like summer for the first time this year.

Saturday was an interesting day for those interested in the Irish Draught horse - this year for the first time, as we understand it, there is a Ridden Irish Draught class at the Dublin Horse Show - surely this is a long overdue class and perhaps the beginning of the Irish promoting their own very special breed at one of the three biggest shows in the world. The Irish Draught Horse is fast becoming one of the endangered breeds and this would be a disaster for many reasons the least not being that the foundation of Irish Sport Horse breeding depends on the pure lines of the Irish Draught being breed as the foundation stock required.

But for many of the younger breeders there has not a lot of point in continuing to breed the pure bred article as there has been no place to showcase them other than in lead classes and these magnificent riding horses deserve better than that - and now finally a ridden class at Dublin Horse Show - perhaps the next step might just be showjumping classes specifically for Irish Draught stallions and mares as this would certainly inspire many of those breeding for the modern sporthorse to have a few Irish Draughts in work and jumping as there would be a point to it!

Fifteen combinations lined up to be judged by Jane Bradbury and Timmy Sullivan and unfortunately the breeding of the horses was not listed so we are unable to bring you this information - other than the winner of the class, which we do have the information on as My Georgina is owned by Celtic Winners Australia and was bred by Fintan Flannelly. My Georgina is by the very handsome grey stallion Silver Granite out of a Skippy mare and she would possibly be one of the best traveled Irish Draughts having moved to Australia as a 2 year old filly, returning to Ireland as a 9 year old. While in Australia My Georgina competed in the dressage arenas where she impressed all who saw her - even if they did not believe she was an Irish Draught - Australian's still live under the illusion that the Irish Draught either pulls a cart or showjumps - My Georgina went a long way to proving this belief to be false and today the Judges saw fit to award her first placing in the Irish Horse Board sponsored Irish Draught class.

My Georgina was superbly prepared and ridden by Mary Ann Casey of Kilcarrick Riding Club and she was assisted brilliantly in the ring by her super supportive mother Jill.

Second place went to Deborah Tems and another grey, Bannerman Breeze and they represented Ballyhyland Riding Club.

For full results the AIRC site is the place to visit by clicking here

Another class sponsored by the Irish Horse Board was the other Irish breed know world wide for their temperaments and ability - the

The cob class fascinated us - in Australia a Cob class would normally refer to Welsh Cobs and so the lineup for the Heavyweight Cob class was definitely not what we expected - the hogged manes and forelocks and the weight on these horses was amazing and yet they appeared very light and comfortable to ride and the four entries the Heavyweight Cob section all seemed to ride so well for the judge Jane Bradbury while Rachel Bennet assessed their conformation.

Second place in the Heavyweight Cob went to Lynne Cassidy from Ballycanew Riding Club- pictured above left - with the gorgeously marked Polkada Pizzaz.

The lineup - pictured below left - showed four very different horses all in the Heavyweight Cob class.