World Cup spot beckons for Merveldt after Salzburg showing

EQUESTRIAN: Irish showjumpers were in the money at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida at the weekend while Anna Merveldt looks set to qualify for the FEI Dressage World Cup Final in April following a solid result in Salzburg yesterday, writes LOUISE PARKES.

Many of Europe’s top showjumpers have flown horses to the US for the 12-week festival that runs through to the end of March, and Bertram Allen raced home to win Friday’s $37,000 (€30,500) WEF Challenge Cup with the Irish-bred Pacino Amiro, pinning America’s Paris Sellon and Anna Joe into runner-up spot.

On Saturday, Cork native Shane Sweetnam finished second with Ideal and third with Indra van de Oude Heihoef in the $37,000 (€30,500) 1.50m Classic won by American star McLain Ward riding Contagious. Allen finished fourth here with the Dutch mare Giolita and Darragh Kenny was fifth with Vinci de Beaufort.

In the big event of the weekend, Conor Swail and GK Coco Chanel then slotted into third in yesterday’s $137,000 (€112,500) Restylane Grand Prix won by Britain’s Ben Maher and Tic Toc.

Meanwhile, Merveldt and the Lusitano stallion Esporim, which competed on the team that helped Ireland clinch Olympic qualification in Dressage for the very first time at the 2019 European Championships in Rotterdam, were Ireland’s sole representatives at the World Cup qualifier in Austria.

They finished 11th in Saturday’s Grand Prix and ninth in yesterday’s Freestyle which moved them into joint-fifth on the qualification leaderboard from which the top nine will make the cut to the final in Gothenburg.

The Dressage World Cup season has been decimated by Covid, with only one other qualifier taking place at Aarhus, Denmark, in October. But one further qualifier is scheduled for ’s-Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands in March.