Albert’s crew excel in show jumping to blow elite field away
Dag Albert has hailed a fantastic team effort in testing conditions after the Agria Irish Eventing Team blitzed an elite field to win the four-star FEI Eventing Nations Cup at Boekelo today.
Albert’s squad of Aoife Clark on Sportsfield Freelance, Susie Berry on the Vincent Cousins-bred Irish Sport Horse Clever Trick, Pádraig McCarthy with Pomp N Circumstance and Austin O’Connor with Iazsa concluded with a total of 102.6 penalties, to prevail comfortably from USA (116.1), as Germany claimed bronze on 131.9.
A tremendous effort in yesterday’s cross-country catapulted the Charles Ancona Green Jackets to the top of the 11-nation table ahead of this afternoon’s show jumping phase and they made no mistake, Clark confirming the famous victory with a professional four-fault round.
Clark’s beaming smile told a tale and when she joined her teammates and Horse Sport Ireland High Performance Eventing Director, Albert in the pocket, it was no surprise to find it matched.
Down native Berry was the leading Irish individual athlete in sixth, while Tipperary pilot McCarthy completed the top ten and Kildare rider Clark finished just outside in 12th.
Individual success went to Germany’s Tokyo gold medallist Julie Krajewski and Nickel 21, edging out Paris bronze medallist Laura Collett (GBR), riding Dacapo.
This was a second Nations Cup triumph by Ireland this year, after emerging triumphant from the home leg in Millstreet and it moved them to fifth in the end-of-season standings, overall victory going to France.
“We are delighted,” said Albert after the prize-giving ceremony at the illustrious Netherlands eventing venue.
“This was all about the team. Every one of them did an important job. The whole way through, they were performing class and that is the reason we got the result. Conditions have been very hard, with lots of rain and the organisers deserve a lot of credit for sorting out the track.
“It started for us with a very solid dressage and that was very important for us. The four of them were really solid there and we weren’t far behind so we knew then we had a chance if everything went right.
“We had three great rounds in the cross-country and that put us in a very strong position. Then we had three great rounds in the show jumping. So it’s great.
“We are building good depth. That’s been the aim from the start and we’ve a good bunch now. We had a big team of individual riders here as well and most of them performed really well, with two maybe a little unlucky.
“We are going onto Lyon next week with the young horses and it’s Pau the week after for the five-star, when we’ll have around ten going. So we’re getting better all over.”
Ireland were in sixth at the end of the two-day dressage phase the cross-country blew the competition wide open and given that is the team’s traditional Achilles heel, it was a notable return.
Berry and Clever Trick recorded a fantastic clear in the conditions in yesterday’s cross-country and got outstanding support from McCarthy on Pomp N Circumstance and Clark on Sportsfield Freelance, who between them picked up just 2.8 time faults.
That propelled Albert’s charges to the lead. They had four and a half penalties in hand going into today’s show jumping, but clear rounds from Berry and McCarthy stretched the margin to more than four fences, giving Clark the luxury of just needing to avoid calamity.
The experienced dual Olympian, who finished seventh at the London Games 12 years ago, was never going to mess it up from there, and just one jumping error confirmed a memorable success.