Huge entry for Millstreet summer spectacular

MILLSTREET becomes the epicentre of Irish show jumping next week, when it stages its annual summer show.

Indicative of its increasing popularity is the massive increase in entries, up 41% on last year, according to Green Glens Complex proprietor Noel C Duggan.

“There will be approximately 1,400 horses stabled on the grounds, competing in eight arenas,” said Mr Duggan yesterday. “Entries number about 6,500, which is an increase of 41% on last year. The 2005 figure was a rise of 20% on the previous year, which proves that this is Ireland’s most popular show,” he said.

He also said that investment continued to be pumped into the Green Glens Complex, “with more than a quarter of a million euro spent on facilities this year”.

He said the show was the first in Ireland to have an online service for entries.

The show, which begins on Wednesday, boasts 78 competitions. The premier events will be the two legs of the Boswell Equestrian Grand Prix League; the first of these takes place on Friday, with the second, a €9,000 super league competition, winding up the show on Sunday.

Other attractions include Friday’s Lee Strand Young Ireland final, beginning 7pm on Friday in the indoor arena.

Saturday sees €9,000 on offer for the Starfinder final for ponies, followed by the Millstreet Derby and the Speed Derby, all in the main arena.

Saturday’s indoor attraction is the National Discovery final for horses, with €5,000 on offer.

To whet the appetite ahead of Sunday’s grand prix feature, there is the Boomerang Finder, a competition that has a proven record in identifying the best in up-and-coming horse talent, with recent winners including Marion Hughes Heritage Transmission.

* CONOR SWAIL charged to the top of the Boswell Equestrian Grand Prix League last weekend, opening up a sizeable lead on Francis Connors.

In a triple-competition Bank Holiday weekend special, Co Down rider Swail opened with a victory on day one of the South County Dublin Show in Celbridge. He followed this with a second on day two and rounded off with a third placing in Dun Laoghaire. The three results were achieved on different horses.

The performances have rocketed him to the top of the Boswell League on 89 points, 13 more than Francis Connors on 76.

Swail’s win, his fifth of the season, came after 13 progressed to the jump-off at the South County Dublin Hunt day-one opener on Saturday.

Commandant Gerry Flynn opted to leave one of his two qualified rides, Mo Chroi, on the sidelines, but the Army rider had no problem taking the lead at the half-way stage, racing Cnoc na Seimre down the long run to the final vertical to cross the line in 32.31 seconds.

It looked unbeatable, but with no sense of caution Swail, riding Conduct, trumped Flynn, the Malahide-based rider knocking five-hundredths of a second off the target in the opening salvo of his offensive on Connors’s league lead.

Day two of the Celbridge show saw Swail aiming for a double in the €10,000 Cawley Furniture-sponsored grand prix.

Connors was bidding to halt his rival’s march, but failed to make the jump-off, with the last and second- last fences down in the first round.

Ultimately, however, it was the experience and guile of Irish show jumping team manager Robert Splaine that denied Swail.

Corkman Splaine, second to go in a five-horse jump-off, took the lead with Clarion Hotels Coolcorron Cool Diamond, the stallion carrying him home in 35.34 seconds.

Like the previous day, Swail set out in determined fashion, but with Nepomuk, he fell short of the target, finishing on 35.94, with Sarah-Kate Quinlivan third on Newmarket Girl in a time of 36.52,

Bank Holiday Monday saw the action move to Dun Laoghaire.

Swail accounted for three of the eight horses in the jump-off and set the early pace on Richard Wright’s Ard VDL Douglas, the pairing finishing clear in 29.33.

Raider Cameron Hanley, however, had little difficulty bettering this, the German-based rider taking the lead in 28.82 seconds on Ratina Z, a horse he only picked up on the way to Hickstead show two weeks previously.

Only Robert Splaine came close to overtaking Hanley, steering Clarion Hotels Coolcorron Cool Diamond across the finish line in 29.16 to slot into second ahead of Swail, whose other rides, Alaska and Conduct, finished with four faults and eight, respectively.

Mayo man Hanley, back in Ireland for this week’s Fáilte Ireland Dublin Horse Show, was, unsurprisingly, effuse in his praise of his newly-acquired 12-year-old mare.

“I only competed this mare for the first time in a few small classes at Hickstead and I’m very excited about her,” Hanley said. “She used to compete for an amateur rider in America but she also did a couple of World Cup Qualifiers there too and today she had a great attitude to her job. I really like her,” he added.