Three eventers poised to get green light for Olympics

What proved a special weekend at Ballindenisk is set to be given the Olympic seal today when the FEI publishes the list of individual riders who have qualified for London.

Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) is confident it will feature three Irish eventing places, the basic requirement for a team. It came, ultimately, as a result of the final push in the Goresbridge Go For Gold International Horse Trials at Ballindenisk that culminated last Sunday with Camilla Speirs winning the short-format CIC class and Mark Kyle battling back to sixth in the long-format CCI to earn two Olympic places.

By the early hours of Monday morning, HSI was happy to unofficially declare that results at events in Russia and Italy had gone Ireland’s way and that Michael Ryan’s second place in the CIC at Ballindenisk with the venerable Old Road had helped him garner a third Olympic slot for Ireland.