Irish riders turning on the style in Florida

The Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida opened last week with a double for Shane Sweetnam, and Wednesday saw the Corkman join Conor Swail and Darragh Kenny to kick off week two with a hat-trick of Irish wins.

Swail was a class apart in the day’s feature contest on the 11-year-old mare Carlotta Singular, throwing down the gauntlet when first to go in a six-horse jump-off and watching as just one of his rivals came within three seconds of him.

As pathfinder, Swail was not prepared to throw caution to the wind.

“I wanted to get a nice result. There was still a good bit left, but like I said, she is naturally fast, so it makes it a lot easier just to be neat and tidy.”

The Co Down rider will pilot the mare in tomorrow’s $50,000 (€37,000) Wellington Equestrian Realty CSI2* Grand Prix.

“My plan is for her to do the bigger classes,” Swail said. “I am just getting used to her a little bit now and trying to figure her out and see what she does well.”

Swail is anticipating further success, having joined forces with Canadian Susan Grange.

“I have started to ride Sue Grange’s horses now and she has a lot of nice horses,” he said. “It is a nice opportunity for me to have a good season here. Carlotta will be the main one and also Lansdowne; he is a nice stallion. Those two I will do mainly for the big classes. There are also a few other very nice ones to do other classes.”

Earlier Sweetnam notched up his hat-trick when taking the $6,000 (€4,400) Spy Coast Farm 1.40m jump-off with Amaretto D’Arco. Twenty-two of the 94 entries made it to the jump-off, with the Kanturk man putting in the fastest of 12 double clears.

In the speed class, Darragh Kenny had a winning margin of almost four seconds with Cavallo Farms’ Gucci, after 54 competitors went to the starting post.

*A candidate has been selected to replace Joe Walsh as chairman of Horse Sport Ireland.

A spokesman for Sport Minister Leo Varadkar yesterday said: “He will be announced in the near future. He’s also been approved by the Dept of Agriculture.”

Meanwhile, four candidates will be recalled for the second round of interviews for the post of manager of the Irish show jumping team. It is believed current manager Robert Splaine is among the quartet.

HSI suffered embarrassment this week in its search for a high-performance manager for the Irish eventing team with the surprise decision by Ginny Elliot not to seek another term.

The English woman — who had held the position since 2008 — had been interviewed, but opted to withdraw her name.

She cited “recent developments and the opportunity to contemplate”, but would not elaborate further. Both managers’ positions are due to be filled by the end of the month.

*Pony measuring takes place tomorrow at the West Cork Equine Centre, Kilbrittain, from 12-3pm.

The Cork/Kerry Branch dinner dance and awards ceremony takes place on Saturday, January 26, at Oriel House Hotel, Ballincollig, with tickets available from committee members, priced at €30 for adults and €20 for children.