The Amateur circuit in Ireland is strongly contested throughout the country and has huge numbers of competitors on some super horses. The circuit runs throughout the year and many of the riders have, in the past, competed on the professional circuit but have opted out due to business or family commitments - the professional circuit leaves little time for a family life!

But make no mistake - just because these riders are labeled as "amateurs" they are excellent riders on excellent horses. The competitions for Amateurs includes Nations Cups and also now, in keeping with the professional circuit there is now a Veterans competition which sees competition for female riders over 40 years of age and male riders over 45 years of age. There will be more coming on the Veterans classes soon.

And so to the Amateur Riders Championships at Dublin Horse Show in the Main Arena where we saw the 12 best in the country. This final included riders from the A and AA sections - the A jump lower heights than the AA riders so the A riders started the class with David Hanna's Beech Clover ridden by Steven Geer and they had just one unlucky rail down, as did Marguerite Ryan on her own Random Chance and Fiona Thompson on her own Ginnalli.

Our first clear round came from Niamh White and her own Mandiaka Bella and when Mary-Ann Casey from County Kildare and Mark Farrington's Elysium jumped clear we had a jump off!!!

There was plenty of laughter around the Main Arena when our commentator for the afternoon couldn't get Mary-Ann's horses name quite right and kept referring to him as Asylum!

Next to go in the A's was Carol Hyde and her own Inkerman but they were another combination to leave the arena with four faults as did Ronan Rooney and his own Nautica. Last to go for the A section was Thomas Hyland and his own Togher Tequila and they too left the arena with just the four faults.

So the A section jump off saw just the two riders go through - Niamh White and Mary-Ann Casey and then we were on to the AA section which saw just four riders through to this final and all four riders jumped super clear rounds to go through to the jump off.

Niamh White headed out first and set the standard with clear jumping in 35.09secs and so set the challenge. Mary-Ann Casey jumped a very fast round but with just a tap of a rail finished with four faults in 34.58secs.

Francis Bingham and Winifred Bingham's Belleek Lady lowered one fence to finish with four faults in 34.89secs while John Buckley recorded and incredibly fast clear round riding Rebecca Veale's Coolnacreena Forest to push Niamh out of provisional first with a time of 33.96secs which was going to be hard to beat.

Patrick Murphy and his own Shannon Cruise worked hard to shift the placings and finished with clear jumping in 34.94secs which still saw John Buckley holding his provisional first placing but there was one to go and he is possibly one of the most successful and competitive of the Amateurs in Ireland - Martin Wilson riding his own Database.

And as Martin is so well known for doing - he took full advantage of his pole position and came out fast from the starters blocks and never drew rein to come through the finish flags with clear jumping and the incredible time of 32.47secs to take first place for the Northern based businessman to the roars of the crowd who had cheered him on over every fence in the jump off where Martin "took the turns - but never the rein" and so he added yet another title to his already long CV.