Eleven Irish eventing pairs shortlisted for London Olympics
Following impressive performances from the Irish Olympic eventing candidates at Tattersalls last weekend, Ireland’s high performance manager Ginny Elliot has named a shortlist of 10 riders and 11 horses for the London Olympics this summer.
The shortlisted combinations are:
- Aoife Clark/Master Crusoe
- Capt Geoff Curran/Shanaclough Crecora and The Jump Jet
- Jayne Doherty/Ravenstar
- Sarah Ennis/Sugar Brown Babe
- Mark Kyle/Coolio
- Joseph Murphy/Electric Cruise
- Elizabeth Power/September Bliss
- Michael Ryan/Ballylynch Adventure
- Camilla Speirs/Portersize Just A Jiff (pictured)
- Sam Watson/Horseware Bushman
Ireland is assured of a team of three riders at the Games, but this could increase to four or five on 17 June, depending on whether other countries who secured places have sufficient eligible combinations to take up the spots.
Ginny will choose her final team on 2 July following Barbury Castle.
She said that the decision to reduce the list to 10 riders had been difficult after the riders’ strong performances at Tattersalls, where Camilla Speirs secured her place in the shortlist with a win and several other combinations showed good form.
“The reality is that all of the riders performed very well at the weekend, under real pressure, as they knew places were on the line,” she said
“The combinations I have named have all done very well and the final selection looks like it will cause me several sleepless nights, but it is brilliant to have real choices.
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“Now that we have a team the key issue will be to select the appropriate mix of combinations to maximise our chances of winning a medal at the Games.
“Obviously the number of places we end up with will be influential in devising this strategy and it will be crucial to get at least one more place and it would be great to get a full five.”
Full report of Tattersalls in H&H this week (7 June).
