There was success for Fermanagh pair Shirley and Adrian Hurst at the Dublin Horse Show last week as their own Tattygare Me Me Me was crowned Supreme Hunter Champion.

The prize came as a shock for, owner and breeders, Adrian and Shirley, who live in Lisbellaw, with the four-year-old horse continuing to impress.

“It was an unbelievable moment,” Shirley said speaking after the weekend. “We never thought it would be possible for a four-year-old mare to achieve.

"She has just got better and better from every championship and won it on Saturday morning.

"It was just excellent. The Dublin Horse Show is every year in August. It was a week later this year due to the Olympics, but our season starts from Balmoral and wraps up in another week or so, just going around the shows.”

Shirley and her husband Adrian were confident Tattygare would do well but did not predict she would win Supreme Hunter Champion at such a young age.

The horse was ridden by Jamie Smyth, from Nutts Corner, while Shirley also competed at the show in Dublin with some of their other horses.

“She won in Dublin before and we were confident that she would do well but to do what she did on the Saturday, winning supreme, surpassed all our dreams,” she continued.

“It was the first time we won that championship. We had been lucky enough to win several there with the young stock mares and a few under saddle.

"I prepared her for up to two weeks before the horse show and then gave it to our rider Jamie Smyth as I was also competing in another ring of young horses.”

Tattygare Me Me Me has a sister Tattygare Its All About Me, as Shirley laughed that they are named after family members.

The Lisbellaw pairs three children, Adriana, James and William all help to look after their horses, a collection that is now in double figures.

Shirley added that the prize-winning mare will now have a break until after the new year: “She’s having a break now and after Christmas, we’ll take her back in and long term we’ll take her into the broodmare scheme we have going on at the moment.

"We have double figures. There’s plenty to do at the minute with the weather.

"Normally they don’t come in until October but our land is so wet at the moment we are having an early winter, unfortunately.”

Not all of the Hurst’s horses take part in events with so many of them still so young.

“Just a select few because most of them are young mares from foles, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, so, now we just start handling them over the winter, and see where we go from there and pick out the more special ones and they can start competing from Balmoral onwards.”