Marion Hughes, whose main goal for the year was the Sydney Olympics until the Irish selectors voted not to send a team, opened the Irish account at Ballsbridge yesterday with a win in the two-part Kerrygold speed stakes.
The Kilkenny rider, who sold her top horse Heritage Charlton for a reputed £1 million after the decision, was drawn six from the end with the veteran mare Flo Jo. Despite her age, the 16-year-old grey was the only one to break the 60-second barrier and, with the digital clock showing 59.88, Hughes was out in front and stayed there to net herself the winner's cheque for £1,300.
Double Queen's Cup winner Flo Jo, a daughter of the great sire of show jumpers Clover Hill, has not been seen on the competition circuit since jumping on the Spanish Sunshine Tour back in March. Hughes has been trying to get an embryo out of the mare for an embryo transplant into a recipient mare.
Marilyn Little, daughter of American team rider Lynne Little, had held the lead from halfway through the morning session with Pico De Gallo, but had to give best to Hughes.
It looked as though the Americans were going to break through into the winners' enclosure in the following Kerrygold Welcome Stakes when Molly Ashe had the tricky Kroon Gravin home in 42.22 to snatch the lead from Frenchman Michel Hecart with Baeken Platiere.
That held until four from the end when Germany's Rene Tebbel had his Calgary Grand Prix winner Radiator through the finish more than a quarter of a second to the good.
No one else could touch Tebbel, but his appearance in Dublin only came about after a successful appeal to the Court of Arbitration in Sport after an eight-month suspension.
Tebbel was accused of using a sensitising agent under his horse's bandages at the Stuttgart show last November and was immediately disqualified and sent home.
Following a disciplinary hearing, the international equestrian federation (FEI) suspended him for eight months.
The then 30-year-old appealed his case to the Court of Arbitration in Lausanne and was allowed to continue competing until the appeal hearing, at which the FEI decision was overturned and all sanctions lifted.