Podium finish for Irish senior jumpers at five-star Falsterbo Nations Cup

The Irish Senior show jumping team has finished third this afternoon at the five-star Agria Nations Cup in the rain in Falsterbo, Sweden.

The team of Billy Twomey, Jason Foley, Cian O’Connor and Trevor Breen provided a somewhat confidence-boosting performance ahead of next week’s European Championship in La Coruna, Spain, finishing on a score of eight faults for the podium finish behind Sweden and USA.

Double clear rounds from Twomey and Breen were the highlights for Ireland as they kept pace with the leaders throughout, in what was ultimately a very positive result for the Irish.

Ireland went into the break on a score of four faults after clear rounds from Twomey with Jumping Jack Van De Kalevallei and Breen with Highland President, while O’Connor and Kentucky TN only had a desperately unlucky last fence pole down for four faults. Foley’s eight faults with Chedington Hazy Toulana was Ireland’s first round discard score.

USA, Switzerland and hosts Sweden were also on four faults at the break, with USA topping the leaderboard on time.

Twomey followed up as first line rider to make it a double clear before the last fence came back to bite the Irish, with Foley and Chedington Hazy Toulana jumping a brilliant round until the last pole dropped for four faults.

O’Connor repeated his first-round tally of four faults with Kentucky TN as the pole dropped at the second last fence this time around, and with Karl Cook jumping clear for United States of America, it left them on top alongside Sweden with just the final riders to come.

Swedish anchor Henrick von Eckermann put victory beyond Ireland with a clear round, and it was down to McLain Ward and High Star Hero to jump clear to force a jump-off. That was beyond them, however, and the home nation picked up the victory.

With Horse Sport Ireland High Performance Manager Michael Blake in Riesenbeck overseeing Ireland’s Young Riders winning European gold, Guy Hodgson acted as Chef d’Equipe and he was understandably very pleased with the team’s performance.

Hodgson said: “The guys were great, yet a little unlucky with some late poles coming down. It was a tough course and combinations were getting caught out at various points in wet conditions, but we were happy with how we had planned things out and I think that showed with the four clear rounds we jumped.

“It has been a very busy period for the team, with results not going our way but this was a good way to bounce back and it sets us up very nicely with plenty of confidence going into the European Championships in Spain next week.”

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