We brought you news of the Australian bred Irish Sport Horse at the Goffs Show last month and thought we had better give you the news of his performance at Dublin Horse Show.....from the perspective of "first timers" at one of the best shows in the world.

We have never been involved in showing in Australia and this was an eye opener for our crew - but luckily our rider, Mary Ann Casey is experienced at showing and has been to Dublin before so she "held our hands" through much of the experience.

The first thing is that on arrival in Dublin all horses are subject to a veterinary inspection and must present their passports and certificates of vaccination - if the paperwork isn't in order you don't get in, it is that simple.

All our paperwork was in order and we passed through with flying colours and then it was time to find the allocated stable - we had heard that the bedding was straw and our youngster is known for "loving to eat" and so a muzzle had been purchased to ensure that he didn't decide to eat through his bedding. This did cause some concern to us as MyCeltic Tiger's father, Holy Diamond had eaten his way through his bedding shortly before we lost him at Melbourne Royal in 1997 - but someone was looking out for us and MyCeltic Tiger was on a shavings bed so he was spared the indignity of wearing a muzzle!

Mary Ann got everything organised so calmly and quietly with the help of her superstar "groom" mum, Jill and then decided it was time to take MyCeltic Tiger for a look around to make sure that he wasn't going to "lose the plot" in such a busy environment - and it was busy as the Aga Khan Cup had just finished and the place was bursting at the seams with wall to wall people but our youngster behaved himself perfectly, even if his eyes were "out on stalks" - he never put a foot wrong and everything looked set for a good day on Saturday.

His lordship was put to bed and given his dinner and hay and left for the night with words of wisdom being whispered in his ear as we all headed off to our dinner!

Saturday loomed bright and sunny and we felt so sorry for Mary Ann because she had an awful dilemma - she was in the showring with our lad at 11.40am and she was to be in the showjumping ring at 12.20pm with Mark Farrington's horse for the Amateur Championships - it was going to be very tight but the Officials understood and the showjumping ring were working hard to be accommodating.

So to the ring - MyCeltic Tiger attracted a great deal of interest in the warm up arena being the only "branded" horse there and combined with his handsome good looks (yes your author is biased and unashamedly so!) and many people were asking questions about his breeding etc. and through it all he behaved perfectly, passing test number 2!

A quick "touch up" in the warm up ring includes some hoof black and wipe down from on board and we are ready to go into the ring.

At this point I have to admit that both Maggie and myself had our hearts in our mouths - this was a huge moment for us, having hand raised this youngster after his mother was stolen from us when he was just two weeks old, along with his stablemate MyCeltic Tiger Lil - these two youngsters fought the odds to survive, as our Vet in Australia had told us that these two were unlikely to both survive, if we were lucky one might!

Well the two orphans survived and are both young horses we are very proud of, so matter what happened in the showring today we were delighted to have MyCeltic Tiger here and so into the ring he went with Mary Ann on board and her super sensational mum, Jill grooming for her - they are a formidable team!

The place was packed to the rafters as the Large Riding Horse class is a very popular class for spectators and many use this ring to find their next superstar - would our young man be one that the buyers would be looking at?!

We had plenty of supporters there including Michelle Jewell, pictured above left, who was finishing up her 8 month stint at the Flannelly's breeding farm in County Kildare, where she learned plenty about live serving stallions, foaling down and general care of young stock including preparation for the showring, so she was watching with her new knowledge.

And we were in and off and running - now I have to say the showring in Ireland is quite different to the showring in Australia - first up there are no "hours of lunging" going on around the grounds prior to the classes - horses are all tucked up in their beds and everyone off the grounds by 10pm and no admittance until 7am each morning - if there is a problem the equine security guards phone the listed person so there is no need for concern.

There were 22 in the class and first up the horses are ridden by their riders and they are then called in to line up - at this point Maggie and I were very excited as it appeared that our boy had been called in first, but a lovely girl watching ringside near us kindly explained that this was of no significance, it was just to get everyone lined up before they did their workout - drats! We thought we were looking good - we did query this lovely girl as to whether "she knew what she was watching" - and this was to be a question we were later to be embarrassed about when we discovered that Kelly Troughton was to be crowned the Supreme Champion, Champion, 4 year old and Champion Light Weight Hunter of Dublin Horse Show -at least Kelly knew we were having some fun - thankyou Kelly for being so nice to the "showing rookies"!

So the riders do their work out and this includes a gallop - and this is where we discovered that sometimes things aren't as different as one at first thinks - there was one rider in particular who was determined to "stuff up" Mary Ann's gallop work and even though she was repeatedly told to get off the horses tail she chose not to and the gallop was not perhaps exactly as it had been in the "dress rehearsal" but that was ok because the boy was behaving perfectly so far! Then there were also those riders who would try to crush Mary Ann out of Judges view - but again Mary Ann was not disturbed by any of this and kept working quietly with MyCeltic Tiger and they were looking great - and when the Judges began calling combinations in we were delighted to find that Mary Ann was called in 6th and all was looking super sensational at this point!

So now it is time for the two Judges to ride the horses - yes that is right - each Judge rides EVERY horse in the class! Now the Judges are to be commended at this point because in most cases they would never have ridden these horses before and have no idea what

they might or might not do - and they are putting their own riding skills on show with every horse they get on!

So now it is time for the two Judges to ride the horses - yes that is right - each Judge rides EVERY horse in the class! Now the Judges are to be commended at this point because in most cases they would never have ridden these horses before and have no idea what they might or might not do - and they are putting their own riding skills on show with every horse they get on!

The Judges were all a touch nervous today, as the previous day saw one of the Judges rushed to hospital after one of the horses had bolted on him and then dropped him to the ground resulting in a crushed coccyx and a stay of some 6 weeks in the hospital - just further impressed on everyone how good these Judges are.

So Judge number one rode MyCeltic Tiger and he behaved perfectly for him - the Judge returned him to Mary Ann with a big smile on his face and Kelly gave us the 'behind the scenes" info that the big pat the horse got from the Judge was a "good sign"! As you can imagine, we were on top of the world at this point.

Those sitting enjoying their Champagne and Seafood luncheons had a birdseye view of proceedings and even the popping of champagne corks didn't phase our youngster who we believe was the youngest horse in the class, so quite an achievement considering his lack of previous experience.
But it was whilst being ridden by the second Judge that disaster struck - as they went past the bulk of the spectators, our boy gave a

small kick out - and I do mean small, but nonetheless it was a disobedience and this was not a good thing - this is a Riding Horse class and horses are not permitted even the smallest disobedience so all of a sudden we were not looking quite as secure as we had been!

I thnk it was at this point we decided that the showring was not really suited to our dispositions - it was pointed out to us that someone had purposely disturbed the horse by waving a plastic bag around very violently - now whether this is true or not we will never know and at the end of the day it actually doesn't matter because he gave his little kick out and nothing would change that.

So, at this point we did not know how badly this had affected our position and there was still plenty of work to be done before this class was to be over. The second Judge returned MyCeltic Tiger to Mary Ann and he too commented what a lovely young horse this was with beautiful paces.

The next part is the conformation judging and all the horses are stripped, in the ring of their gear, given a clean up and then inspected and trotted up for the Judges - again MyCeltic Tiger looked super
and behaved perfectly.

By now there were plenty of spectators - including the Dublin Horse Show "cleaning ladies" who were always on hand to give any passers by a quite "squirt and a dust off" and there were also some celebrities roaming amongst the crowd as the photos below show!

It was very interestng to see the horses stripped down - so many looked so very different without their saddles on, some looked so much better and others not quite so good - it does give a whole new perspective of a show horse though when you see them first under saddle and then "in the raw" so to speak!

And finally it is time for the final "leg up" of the class and Mary Ann is back in the saddle while the Judges make their final decision - we would like to think that we were being considered long and hard, and certainly the feed back was that the Judges loved our boy - but in the final lineup we missed out on one of the prized Dublin rosettes finishing 9th out of 22 which was still an excellent result and one we were very proud of and the good news was that Mary Ann raced back to the showjumping ring on the other side of the road in Simmonscourt and got onto her showjumper just as they were calling her into the warm up ring, jumped a clear round to go into the jump off and finished in 4th place going through to the main championship to be held the next day on the hallowed grounds of the Main Arena - so we had a super day all round and our thanks to Mary Ann and Jill Casey for all the hard work they put into our young one and for an excellent result which made us so proud to have bred this lovely young horse in Australia and have him so well thought of by the Judges in Ireland.

For informatin about Celtic Winners Australia please check out our web site and we do have quality young stock for sale so please feel free to contact us.

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