Hand-made rocking horses designed and manufactured in east Belfast are proving a big hit with shoppers at one of America's leading toy stores. A number of the products, ordered on a trial basis from Mulholland and Bailie, were snapped up the day they went on sale.

Now the store, FAO Schwarz, whose main store is on New York's Fifth Avenue, has placed an order for 600 of the horses, the largest order ever won by the Belfast company, which employs just 17 people in a small factory off the Ravenhill Road.

"We met Schwarz representatives at the British toy fair at Olympia," said the managing director, Mr Jack Mulholland, "and we're delighted at the way things have turned out." The Mulholland and Bailie rocking horse will be available in around 20 of FAO Schwarz's 40 outlets across the US, and has also been included in the company's mail order catalogue.