Ireland has confirmed the showjumping squad that is to head to the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy next month (2-7 September).
The squad is made up of:
- Bertram Allen with Ballywalter Farms’ Molly Malone V
- Cameron Hanley with Eleonore Paschoud and Yves Bouvier’s Antello Z
- Darragh Kenny with Hyperion Stud’s Imothep
- Denis Lynch with Thomas Straumann’s All Star 5
- Conor Swail with Ariel and Susan Grange’s Lansdowne
Four out of the five combinations will be selected by team manager Robert Splaine to jump at the Games in due course.
It will be a second WEG for Olympic rider Denis Lynch, who travelled to Kentucky in 2010.
Darragh Kenny, Conor Swail and Bertram Allen get their first WEG call-up.
Bertram, the 19-year-old Irish up-and-coming star of the moment, finished second in the King George V Cup at Hickstead and won the grand prix at Dublin last week.
Meanwhile Cameron Hanley is back in action — marking a comeback for the rider who ruptured his knee in a freak accident in 2011. He last competed at WEG in 2006.
“I was at stage not so long ago when I didn’t even think I’d be riding again,” he told H&H. “WEG seemed like an almost impossible dream”.
Full Dublin report in this week’s issue of H&H magazine — out Thursday 14 August.
