The Irish Sport Horse Studbook held on to record a narrow victory (151 penalties) in the FEI world breeding championships for young event horses which concluded on Sunday at Le Lion d’Angers, France.
The contributing scores all came from the afternoon's seven-year-old section where Australian riders Chris Burton and Emma Dougall finished fourth and fifth with Cooley Lands (48.7) and Fernhill Tabasco (49.3) respectively while Britain's Piggy French placed 12th on Morswood (53).
This CCI2* class was won by British rider Laura Collett on a penalty score of 45.2 with Mr Bass, their victory helping the Holsteiner studbook finish second in the breed championship. Also contributing to the total of 153 were Sweden's Ludwig Svennerstall, 15th in the older division on Apse (53.9), and Germany's Michael Jung who won the earlier CCI1* class for six-year-olds on 43.1, a score which, using a coefficient of 1.25, translates to 53.875.
The reigning European and Olympic champion looked set to record a double as he led going into the concluding show jumping phase of the seven-year-old class but dropped to 12th when Lennox 364 lowered three fences for a total of 50. Thomas Carlile finished second to French on Upsilon (46.5) with Belgium's Vincent Martens third on Eiskonig (47.6).
Best-placed of Irish in the two-star class was Co Wicklow's Heidi Hamilton who finished 18th with her ISH Dam Easy, a gelding by Luidam.
British rider William Fox-Pitt was taken to the local hospital on Saturday following a fall on the cross-country course of the CCI2* with the Irish-bred Reinstated. A posting on his Twitter page that night stated: ‘William at Angers hospital following fall @MondialduLion. Suffered head trauma, fine otherwise, stable, remains under observation tonight.’
