Liked the ultimate success of a show jumper? (8)
I believe the answer is:
eventual
'liked the ultimate success' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, past participle verbs and adjectives occasionally define each other.
'show jumper?' is the wordplay.
'show' becomes 'event' (event can mean a show or exhibition).
'jumper?' becomes 'ual' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'event'+'ual'='EVENTUAL'
'of a' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for eventual that I've seen before include "Ultimately resulting" , "Occurring after some time" , "Happening in due course" , "'Inevitable, with time (8)'" , "Net value (anag.)" .)