Ashford Castle, an exceptional open, junior and amateur hunter, died on Sept. 29. He was 26.

Ashford Castle won championships and an array of high-score awards from Florida to Virginia, including titles at Devon (Pa.), the Washington (D.C.) International and the National (N.Y.) horse shows.

Some of his many partners included Kathy Doyle Newman, Havens Schatt, Pamela Covington, Corrine Lindner, Marley Goodman and Laura Kraut.

At the peak of his career, Ashford Castle was the only horse in the history of Devon to be grand champion in the professional, amateur and junior divisions. Ashford Castle was prominent in the American Horse Shows Association national standings in the mid- to late-1990s and was the regular working hunter reserve national champion in 1995 and picked up the same title two years later in the small junior division.

He retired at age 17 with 14,210 points in the regular working hunter division and 15,054 points in the small junior hunter division.

Ashford Castle received the Heard A Rumor Perpetual Trophy, presented to a horse that had shown exceptional ability and epitomized the important partnership of show hunter and hunter rider, at the 2004 Capital Challenge (Md.) and was inducted into the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame in 2007.