The Cork-born rider and Sue Davies’s mare ‘Tinka’s Serenade’ had two unfortunate mistakes in their first round, but stormed back in the second round to produce a classic clear. However, this was not enough to qualify the 33 year-old for Saturday’s Rolex Top Four Final, which will decide the Show Jumping World Champion for the next four years. Twomey, like all the top 30 riders tonight, carried faults from his earlier rounds and finished on a total of 14.54 penalty points.
Top of the leaderboard tonight was Canada’s Eric Lamaze with the bay stallion ‘Hickstead’ on 3.390 penalties, and he will be joined in the Top Four Final by Belgium’s Philippe Le Jeune and ‘Vigo d’Arsouilles’ (4.110 penalties), Brazil’s Rodrigo Pessoa with HH Rebozo (6.800 penalties) and Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah Al Sharbatly on Seldana di Campalto (7.070 penalties).
All four riders will be required to ride each other’s horses in rotation to decide who takes the World Champion title.
Ireland’s last World Champion was Co. Down’s Dermott Lennon, who took the title in 2002 with ‘Liscalgot’.
A total of 121 riders and horses competed over four days of show jumping competitions at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.
