Clement McMahon was reunited with Cowboy Magic Hilton, the Master Imp gelding with which he won the Teachers All-Ireland working hunter title last year, to take the performance championship at the Kerrygold Dublin Horse Show yesterday.
The chestnut was due to be ridden in Ballsbridge yesterday by his current owner Aaron McCusker, but a fall from his mother's horse sustained during judging of the small hunter championship on Thursday afternoon left the Lurgan, Co Armagh rider with a broken bone in his foot, and the ride reverted to McMahon.
Having retained the Teachers working hunter title just 10 days ago with McCusker in the saddle, the eye-catching chestnut was hotly tipped for the performance championship, where his connections hoped he would avenge his controversial omission from the previous day's medium-weight hunter championship line-up.
A jumping round that was impossible to fault gave the McCusker horse the senior performance class honours, and he was also pulled in to head the championship line-up, ahead of Madeline Gervais on Mr and Mrs Egan's Golden Hills, by Kildalton Gold, which has an appointment in this morning's large riding horse class.
Cowboy Magic Hilton's next engagement is the Scottish fixture at Kelso in a week's time, where top British show rider Gilly Tatlow will deputise for the injured McCusker.
Earlier yesterday, Marion Hughes began the day on which she would make her successful Aga Khan team debut with a winning performance in the prestigious four-year-old championship. Hughes earned a runaway victory with her brother Thomas Hughes's bay gelding, Transmission, scoring the highest marks from judges Rich Fellers (USA), Jean-Paul Musette (Belgium) and Robert Smith (Britain) to finish almost 10 points clear of her nearest rival.
The awards ceremony became a Hughes family affair as Marion was presented with the Seamus Hughes trophy, awarded in memory of her late father, by her mother Anne. The winning horse was bred on the Hughes farm at Cuffesgrange in Co Kilkenny and is by the recently deceased stallion, Cavalier. Transmission, an athletic and scopey model, is the sole surviving son of a mare repatriated after her show jumping career in Switzerland was completed.
Padraig Corcoran's Clover Highlight, by Diamond Clover, had been second in the four-yearold class on the opening day of the show, and he was awarded another blue ribbon in yesterday's championship, with Wednesday's winner, Killy Jones in third for Linda Courtney.
