Sport

Liam O’Meara wins at Cavan Equestrian Centre

Joseph Murphy won fourth leg of Connolly’s Red Mills Superleague at Kilguilkey House

Tipperary’s Liam O’Meara, seen here winning on Mr Coolcaum at Barnadown last weekend, bought up a hat trick of national Grand Prix victories when landing the fifth leg of the series at Cavan on Sunday with Curraghgraigue Jack Take Flight. Photograph: Jumpinaction

Margie McLoone
Mon May 15 2017 - 14:01

Liam O’Meara won Sunday’s fifth leg of the national Grand Prix league at Cavan Equestrian Centre riding Curraghgraigue Jack Take Flight, owned by his wife Helen Sheridan.

This was a third successive victory in the League for the Co Tipperary show jumper who won with his own Mr Coolcaum just seven days earlier at Barnadown and with the nine-year-old Jacomar gelding Curraghgraigue Jack Take Flight in Thomastown at the end of April.

O’Meara and Sheridan’s Russel Style finished third in the Irish Sport Horse Studbook seven-year-old qualifier in which nine of Sunday’s 25 starters completed double clears.

The honours went to Clem McMahon riding the family's Hilton Stud home-bred Hilton Alibi, a mare by Pacino, with the Cavan EC-based Mervyn Clarke finishing second on his own Thomascourt Senna (by Mermus R). Former top National Hunt jockey Paul Carberry was sixth on Brandonview First Edition.

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Twelve combinations recorded double clears to split the prize-fund in the six-year-old qualifier with nine doing likewise in the five-year-old section.

Having recorded some good placings earlier in the show, Cork-born Billy Twomey won the five-star speed class at Windsor on Sunday with Sue Davies’s 15-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Tin Tin when stopping the clock on 60.82.

The show marked the official retirement of British gold medal winners at Rio de Janeiro, Nick Skelton and the stallion Big Star.

At the underage show in Opglabbeek, Belgium, Irish riders dominated Sunday’s international Pony Grand Prix.

Co Westmeath’s Kate Derwin took the winner’s prize when recording a second clear in 35.32 on Clive Swindell’s Connemara mare Cul Ban Mistress, a nine-year-old grey by Silver Shadow. Ciaran Nallon and Rexter d’Or finished second (36.17) ahead of Lucy Shanahan and Caliber-De (36.86). This trio, in company with Seamus Hughes-Kennedy (Cuffesgrange Cavalidam), won Saturday 1.30m Nations’ Cup for ponies.

In eventing, Co Meath’s Elizabeth Power finished seventh, and best of the Irish in the first round of the 2017 Event Rider Masters series at Chatsworth in England. Power and her former racehorse Soladoun, a French-bred 10-year-old, completed on their dressage score of 48.7 penalties as Britain’s Gemma Tattersalls topped the leaderboard with Quicklook V (36.9).

At home, Joseph Murphy won Sunday’s fourth leg of the Connolly’s Red Mills Superleague at Kilguilkey House near Mallow when completing on his dressage score of 33.4 penalties with Gorsehill Pearl.

The Co Down-based rider had been waiting for an ease in the ground for Alison Schmutz and Andrew Tinkler’s 12-year-old Hermes de Reve mare which topped the Goresbridge Go For Gold Sale in 2015 when knocked down to Murphy for €85,000.

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