Ireland fail to overcome early setbacks in Rome
It meant the team did not have the luxury of a discard score, negating to a large extent the superb double clear from Billy Twomey and Tinka’s Serenade, one of only five in the contest.
It was contrasting stories for the Irish quartet from the outset, with Corkman Shane Sweetnam and Amaretto D’Arco giving cause for optimism with a clear round. These hopes were quickly shown to be misplaced with Talbot’s mount refusing twice at the treble, the second of which led to a heavy fall for the Kildare rider to end their competition.
Cian O’Connor and his new mount Blue Loyd have tasted success in recent months, but the Meath-based rider had the brakes put on his upward curve with trouble at the water, before going to accumulate a total of 20 faults.
Twomey then put a gloss on matters with the first of his foot-perfect performances.
Round two saw Sweetnam complete on eight faults, O’Connor and a settled Blue Loyd compensated with just four faults, before Twomey again turned on the magic to strengthen his bid for one of the two places available for Ireland in the Olympics.
O’Connor was stoic.
“Having jumped in over 90 nations cups for Ireland, I’m well accustomed to the ups and downs of the sport,” he said.
“Blue Loyd picked up a stride early at the water jump and jumped into it. After an upset like that, the whole rhythm was disrupted and he lost his shape.
“I analysed the situation between rounds and warmed him up in a manner that helped him relax. It proves to me that he has the heart of a lion to jump such a fantastic second round after an upset like that.”
Germany won the contest, but the result left Ireland bottom of the FEI Nations Cup league going into next week’s Swiss Nations Cup in St Gallen, where the team will see O’Connor, Sweetnam and Twomey joined by Jessica Kürten and Denis Lynch.
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