A double helping of FEI World Cup rounds in both show jumping and dressage ensures there is no let-up in international action over the Christmas period.

Leading Irish eventers Padraig McCarthy and Cathal Daniels are among the riders heading to Switzerland for this week’s CHI Geneva five-star fixture.

Cian O’Connor came out on top at the two-star Grand Prix at Opglabbeek in Belgium which saw Irish riders take three of the top five places.

This coming Friday will see Team Europe battle with Team Americas in the Riders Masters Cup at the five-star Longines Masters of Paris meeting in France.

The venue allocation to stage the 2022 world championships in equestrian sport will be announced this coming Saturday during the 2019 FEI General Assembly which is being held in Moscow.

Irish show jumpers will line out on both sides of the Atlantic this week as the 2019/2020 FEI World Cup series gathers momentum.

After Sunday’s clinching of an Olympic place in show jumping in Barcelona, Irish equestrian sport has moved to a place it’s never been before. The country will have eventing, dressage, and show jumping teams at next year’s Olympics - the first time ever that the sport in this country has been able to say that.

The final hour is at hand for Ireland’s show jumpers to deliver their country out of the Olympic wilderness. Not since Athens 2004 has Ireland qualified a show jumping team for the Games, and tomorrow sees the Irish riders embark on their last chance to make Tokyo 2020.

Just two days after breaking her own Irish Grand Prix record score to help Ireland qualify a dressage team for the next Olympic games, Judy Reynolds smashed her Irish Grand Prix Special record to advance to the Freestyle final at the European Championships in Rotterdam yesterday evening.

Five days from today Ireland’s dressage team will commence their bid for honours and a possible Tokyo 2020 place when the European Championships get under way in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The Championships feature Dressage, Show Jumping and Para-Dressage, and it will be the dressage competition that gets the whole affair underway on Monday.

Ireland have been drawn fourth to jump in tomorrow's Longines FEI Nations Cup of Ireland for the Aga Khan Trophy at the 2019 Stena Line Dublin Horse Show.

Paul O’Shea blitzed home on Imerald van’t Voorhof to claim the Sport Ireland Classic on the opening day of Dublin Horse Show yesterday.

Limerick’s Paul O’Shea has led an Irish whitewash of the three international classes on the opening day of the 2019 Stena Line Dublin Horse Show.

Ireland’s show jumping team manager Rodrigo Pessoa is set for his third attempt to win the Aga Khan trophy at the Stena Line Dublin Horse Show which gets underway at the Royal Dublin Society today.

The Irish show jumping team will be vying with nine other nations for an Olympic place when they head to the European Championships in Rotterdam next month.

Meath’s Cian O’Connor has recorded Ireland’s second win of the week at the World Equestrian Festival in Germany.

Offaly’s Darragh Kenny and the Ann Thompson-owned stallion Balou du Reventon tonight confirmed their position as one of the top combinations in world Show Jumping, with a stunning performance which saw them win the €300,000 Longines Global Champions Tour five-star Grand Prix at Chantilly in France.

Last Friday, the Ukrainian show jumping team contested a Tokyo 2020 qualifier in Budapest and amassed a total of 41 faults.

This week Portugal hosts a round of the Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT) as the action moves to the coastal venue of Estoril. Irish riders Bertram Allen, Michael Duffy, Denis Lynch, Darragh Kenny, and Mark McAuley will all be in the hunt for individual purses as well as appearances for their respective Global Champions League (GCL) teams.

New Zealander Tim Price has topped the latest FEI world eventing rankings just days after winning the George Mernagh Memorial CCI4*-S at Tattersalls International Horse Trials in Co Meath, while Ireland’s Elizabeth Power has made a significant climb following her fourth-place finish in the Irish Field CCI4*-L at the same meeting.

Ireland grabs its share of international attention this week with Tattersalls International Horse Trials getting underway in Co. Meath today and Mullingar hosting its two-star international show jumping meeting over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Ireland’s show jumping team manager Rodrigo Pessoa brings a five-member squad to Rome for this week’s Italian Nations Cup, but will not face the same pressure he experienced last week in France.

Irish showjumper Darragh Kenny has claimed a place on the podium at today’s €200,000 five-star Longines Grand Prix at La Baule in France.

Friday sees the first of Ireland’s competitive show jumping team fixtures this year as manager Rodrigo Pessoa brings a strong squad to La Baule for the French Nations Cup.

Shane Breen will be hoping for a repeat of his form a fortnight ago when lining out in Shanghai this week for the latest round of the Global Champions League.

Cian O’Connor takes his relatively recent acquisition Irenice Horta to this week’s four-star Horses and Dreams fixture at Hagen in Germany.

This weekend should see Ireland’s Judy Reynolds secure a place at the 2018/2019 FEI Dressage World Cup final, which takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden in April.

The year is getting off to a familiar start for Irish riders based in the US as the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) commences in Wellington, Florida today and continues for three months.

The show jumping team season comes to its conclusion this weekend when fifteen countries do battle in the annual FEI Nations Cup Final in Barcelona.

Irish show jumper Cian O’Connor has been elected to represent the world’s show jumpers on the Jumping Committee of the FEI, equestrian sport’s world governing body, it was announced this week.

Last Sunday’s nations cup in Rotterdam did not involve the Irish team but the result will have a bearing on the country’s league standing up to and including the Aga Khan contest at Dublin Horse Show which is now just over six weeks away.

“All in all everyone is happy and it’s onwards and upwards from here,” said Irish rider Shane Breen after Sunday’s nations cup league opener in Samorin, Slovakia.

Young Galway rider Michael Duffy could hardly have hoped for a better debut in the Global Champions League when he represented the mostly-Irish Miami Celtics team, riding Efs Top Contender in the opening round of the season in Mexico City at the weekend.

There were some positive moves for Irish riders in the latest Longines rankings issued by the world governing body, the FEI, yesterday.

Ireland’s show jumpers could be in line for a notable treble as they tackle the Wellington Nations Cup this weekend during week eight of the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida.

“You don’t win nations cups without jumping clear rounds and we didn’t jump enough of them,” said Michael Blake after he had seen the Irish show jumping team he managed fall short of repeating last year’s success in Ocala, Florida on Sunday evening.

Ireland has two show jumping teams in action this weekend for the first of this year’s nations cup fixtures. Michael Blake takes charge of affairs for the five-star meeting in Ocala, Florida, while Taylor Vard will be overseeing matters at Abu Dhabi’s five-star contest in the UAE.

Irish riders netted three-star Grand Prix victories on both sides of the Atlantic at the weekend, with Paul O’Shea scoring in Tryon, North Carolina, and Darragh Kenny coming out on top at Montpellier in France.

The Manhattan skyline provides the backdrop to this week’s showpiece event on the North American circuit as the fourth staging of the the Rolex Central Park Horse Show gets underway at the Wollman Rink today.

The latest Longines FEI world rankings saw Irish riders on the move following the European Show Jumping Championship success last month.

A dramatic last-gasp win by Shane Breen in the Sport Ireland Classic crowned Irish dominance of yesterday’s opening-day action at Dublin Horse Show.

June has been a remarkable month for Irish riders at the top level of individual competition.

Show jumping team affairs get serious for Ireland from this weekend.

Ireland’s show jumping manager Rodrigo Pessoa was understandably disappointed after last Friday’s seventh-place finish in the five-star Nations Cup at St Gallen in Switzerland, even though it was one of the dispensable ones in his calendar.