Sweetnam continues good early season form

“So far, so good,” was the typically understated response from Shane Sweetnam as he continued his run of good form in the opening week of the FTI Consulting Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida.

Solerina gave the US-based Corkman the first of back-to-back wins on day one of the 12-week $4m festival, and the Cruising mare also carried him to third place in Saturday’s $25,000 1.50m feature class, just ahead of New Jersey-based compatriot Ronan McGuigan on his own nine-year-old Dutch warmblood Capall Zidane.

Success, however, did not materialise for Sweetnam and his fellow Irishmen in the $55,000 Nespresso Battle of the Sexes contest.

The Kanturk man was one of three Irish on the men’s team — along with Richie Moloney and Darragh Kenny — that fell victim to the women’s team for the fifth successive year.

Kenny, though, won a special award for his speed on Vanotrouska.

“It was my first year, so to win the speed award was quite nice. It was a fun class and I would love to do it again, for sure,” said the Offaly rider.

He was also one of three Irish riders to place fourth in grands prix at the weekend the result coming last night on User ID.

It followed Michael Hutchinson’s fourth with the bay stallion Le Roi 10 in Abu Dhabi, while Derry’s Trevor Coyle also produced a double clear with the bay mare Carlina IV in the grand prix at Drachten, the Netherlands.

A single error in the jump-off with Unique placed Cian O’Connor seventh in the Abu Dhabi grand prix, the two having finished second in Thursday’s welcome stakes.

In Switzerland, Tipperary’s Denis Lynch rode All Star to 12th place in the five-star Basel Grand Prix, with the pairing finishing third in Friday’s grand prix qualifier.

Meanwhile, the International Equestrian Federation Bureau has withdrawn the hosting rights for the World Cup Jumping and Dressage Finals in 2015 from Guadalajara (MEX), saying “the organisers have been unable to meet in full the requirements imposed by the FEI Bureau when the finals were allocated to Guadalajara at its meeting in June of last year”.