Shane Sweetnam: 'I felt like I was in shock myself'

Sweetnam, the first of the Irish in the ring for the team showjumping final, came off Alejandro after his mount crashed into a number of fences and lost a shoe in the process.

Shane Sweetnam of Ireland falls from Alejandro at the 9th fence during the jumping team qualifier at the Equestrian Park

Ireland suffered an early exit from the team showjumping final.

Shane Sweetnam, the first of the Irish in the ring, came off Alejandro after his mount crashed into a number of fences and lost a shoe in the process.

Cork native Sweetnam escaped unscathed but admitted that he 'was in shock' following the incident.

Horse Sport Ireland chiefs decided then to withdraw their two remaining riders - Bertram Allen and Darragh Kenny - from competition as qualification for the top 10 was 'extremely unlikely' following the earlier elimination of Sweetnam

“I’m okay and the horse seems to be OK,” said Sweetnam. “He started off okay – he’s an experienced horse who is normally very good. But he overreached or he pulled a shoe going into the triple combination and I don’t know whether that hurt him but it definitely rattled him. And after that, you could see he was very unsettled and he wasn’t himself. 

"He’s a very sensitive horse, so whatever happened going into the combination really flustered him and he forgot what he was doing. I felt like I was in shock myself, but hopefully he’ll be okay and we can bounce back from it.”

A statement from Horse Sport Ireland explained the reasoning behind the decision. "The Irish team have taken the tough decision to withdrawn their two remaining horses from today’s Olympic qualifier.  With the new Olympic format of just three riders on a team and no discard score, it was extremely unlikely that Ireland could make it into the top 10 qualifying places as our first combination did not post a completed score. Taking this into consideration, the decision has been taken not to jump Pacino Amiro and VDL Cartello and to save them for another day.”