Coyle continues amazing run with fourth Tour win

Daniel Coyle continued his amazing run in the HSI/Blue Grass Spring Tour, claiming his fourth victory in the sixth leg at Portmore Equestrian Centre, Co Armagh, yesterday.

On board Linzi Johnston’s Uptown Girl — a name more often than not now prefixed by the word “amazing” — the Derry teenager had over three seconds to spare over runner-up James Hogg on Interpreter in the jump-off.

The league moves to Broadmeadows today.

The weekend was notable for its five Irish wins in international competitions, but the last qualifier of the World Cup at ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, was not among them. Denis Lynch has already booked his place in next month’s final in Sweden, but had a disappointing outing yesterday with 16 faults on All Inclusive NRW.

While Jessica Kürten had a win under her belt with the stallion Arezzo VDL, yesterday’s World Cup class saw her score 12 faults with Vincente.

Tipperary’s Trevor Breen was the most prominent of the Irish celebrating the St Patrick’s weekend, riding Adventure de Kannan to victory in the three-star grand prix at Vilamoura, Portugal, while on Friday his brother Shane tasted victory in a jump-off class with the stallion Balloon. In Braunschweig, Germany, 17-year-old Wexford native Bertram Allen won a speed class with Billy Twomey’s mare Molly Malone V, after Co Down’s Conor Swail had opened the Irish account at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida with the mare Martha Louise.

Saturday’s $82,000 Horseware Ireland Grand Prix in Florida saw Cork’s Shane Sweetnam score an impressive third place on Eregast Van’t Kiezelhof.

“It’s his first grand prix of any sort,” said US-based Kanturk rider Sweetnam, before emphasising the rapid progression of the nine-year-old Belgian gelding: “It’s his first grand prix here and WEF was his first 1.45m and last week was his first 1.50m. Honestly, he wasn’t meant to be rushed as quickly, but with Siri getting injured, he had to step up and he has done a great job.

“He was very green in the jump-off. I was very, very happy with him. For the experience he has, he did unbelievable. I have very high hopes for him.”