Ireland in danger of relegation from Top League
The result put manager Robert Splaine’s charges a full seven points behind Belgium and the Corkman will be praying a good outing in Hickstead, England, next Friday, and the traditional fighting performance at next month’s Dublin Horse Show will provide a dramatic turnaround in fortunes.
While the format for the league next year is up for debate, current rules say two countries will be demoted.
Yesterday’s disappointing display also completes a bad week for the sport, following the decision on Monday by Horse Sport Ireland to withdraw the Olympic nomination of Denis Lynch, after his horse Lantinus was disqualified for hypersensitivity in Germany the previous Friday.
Lynch was due to ride in yesterday’s competition, but re-routed to the Global Champions Tour in Portugal.
Manager Robert Splaine, missing Lynch and Olympic-bound Billy Twomey, fielded a side of relatively inexperienced horses, while the quartet were not helped by being drawn first to go.
That inexperience was evident in round one and even a much-improved performance in the second half couldn’t rescue the situation.
Pathfinder Shane Breen and Cos I Can started with 16 faults, followed by an even more discouraging 24 faults from Capt David O’Brien on Annestown. Shane Carey and the young grey Ballymore Eustace lifted spirits with a clear, but this was countered by 13 faults from Clem McMahon and Pacino to leave the team last on 29 penalties at the halfway stage, 13 more than next best, the Netherlands.
Round two saw Breen and McMahon begin the revival, while Carey lowered one pole and tagged on a single time fault, followed by O’Brien again producing the discard score with 16 faults. It proved the best second-round performance, but it was not enough to alter the dismal opening half as the quartet finished on 34 faults, six behind the Dutch.
A dramatic three-way, third-round jump-off saw Sweden, who had shared bottom place with Ireland in the league going into the competition, come out tops ahead of Britain and France, respectively.
Splaine felt the team did not do itself justice.
“It was a very poor first round and I think we were capable of better. The dramatic recovery in the second round by Shane Breen and Clem McMahon gave us some satisfaction, and Shane Carey delivered two excellent rounds. With more consistency we would have been in with a shout and I hope this will be the case over the next two legs of the series.”
Meanwhile, the show jumping element of Cork Summer Show has fallen foul of the weather, with today’s classes, including a €10,000 TRM Premiership Grand Prix, cancelled.
Organisers had made huge efforts in the past few days to ensure the two-day show went ahead and, while managing to run two arenas yesterday, they were forced to concede defeat last night.
“It’s a disaster and disappointing outcome for the Munster Agricultural Society,” said its vice-chairman Gerard Murphy. “We did manage to run the horse and pony showing classes that were rescheduled from June’s Cork Summer Show exhibition section and were able to run two show jumping arenas, having decided to defer some classes until day two, but the adverse weather got the better of us and we have been forced to cancel all classes,” he said.
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