Swail Victory Leads Irish Charge at Wellington
CONOR Swail led the Irish charge in tonight’s (Thursday) Round Ten of the Winter Equestrian Festival Challenge at Wellington in Florida with a victory aboard the chestnut mare Martha Louise.
The Co. Down-born rider, who was second to go in the final round, outpaced the USA’s jump-off leader Charlie Jacobs and Flaming Star, clipping over a second off their time.
Afterwards Swail said of Martha Louise: “”She kind of excelled herself today, she was just fantastic. She is a great horse to have on the truck and she is only nine years old. I have to say, she was very good today. I wasn’t really expecting her to be so good because she hasn’t been doing a lot and I thought she would be a bit rusty, but she was fantastic in the jump-off.”
A total of five Irish riders claimed places in the finishing top ten of the competition, with Olympic medallist Cian O’Connor taking sixth on a single time fault with the Clover Hill gelding Walk Tall II and Darragh Kerins slotting E-Muse Yek into seventh with one pole down.
Eighth place went to Darragh Kenny with Any Given Sunday, with Shane Sweetnam in tenth on Eregast Van’t Kiezelhof.
The tenth round of the Winter Equestrian Festival is sponsored by Horseware Ireland, and sees the $82,000 Grand Prix take place on Saturday.
Meanwhile at the five-star show at ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, Jessica Kurten and Denis Lynch compete for Ireland in the World Cup class on Sunday, while at Braunschweig in Germany Bertram Allen campaigns three horses, with a fourth place on Molly Malone already under his belt today.
Capt. Michael Kelly and Brian O’Malley continue to fly the Irish flag at Vejer de la Frontera in Spain this weekend, while Joanne Sloan Allen, Josephine Sorensen, Alex Duffy and Conor Drain compete at Arezzo’s three-star show in Italy.
A total of ten Irish show jumpers are competing at Vilamoura’s two-star show in Portugal, while Mark McAuley is the sole Irish contender at Vidauban in France.
Horse Sport Ireland, Colin McClelland
Category: News, Show Jumping, Uncategorized
