THIS year's prestigious Cleveland Bay Horse Society King George V Cup was a huge success.

The annual competition to find the Champion Cleveland Bay Premium Stallion was held at York Livestock Centre with nine of the 11 eligible stallions forward.

Between them they represented most of the valuable bloodlines within the breed as well as the wide geographical spread that the breed has in the UK.

This year's judge Roy Raikes-May travelled from Gwent to take on the task. His stallion, Laughton Saladin was the retiring champion.

Roy Raikes-May, judge for the Cleveland Bay Stallion Show and his wife Margaret present the King George V cup to the champions Joanne Firth and High Park Schoffield .
Photo by Roy Parker

After much deliberation the two youngest horses were chosen as Champion and Reserve.

Champion was the five-year-old High Park Schoffield, bred by John Readman and owned by Joanne Firth from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire.

The Reserve award went to Tregoyd Journeyman, a four-year-old homebred by Colin and Margaret Green from Powys.

Both are son and grandson of the famous Storthhouse Temptation who produced many successful pure and part bred Cleveland Bay offspring and who himself won the King George V, four times between 1981 and 1987.

Stallions from as far a field as Durham and the Isle of Wight competed for the prestigious trophy that was presented to the breed 78 years ago by King George V at that time.

.