Equestrian/Punchestown three-day event: Blyth Tait, individual gold medallist at the Atlanta Olympics eight years ago, heads the three-star field at the Fáilte Ireland/IFG Punchestown three-day event after the first day of dressage.

The 43-year-old New Zealander has already announced his intention of retiring at the end of this year, but he has his eye on a second Olympic title in Athens before that and hopes his Punchestown leader, Ready Teddy, will provide the horsepower.

The fiery chestnut carried Tait to Olympic success in 1996. Two years later in Rome the pair added world championship gold to their tally, an honour the Kiwi had claimed eight years previously at the first World Equestrian Games, in Stockholm.

Now 16, Ready Teddy has been off the championship scene since the 2002 World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain, and needs to finish well up the order at Punchestown to earn his ticket for Athens. The gelding damaged a tendon show-jumping in the spring of 2003 and, with the Games in mind, Tait has given him plenty of time to recover.

"I was very cautious with him," Tait said yesterday after his mark of 46.8 gave him a two-point lead over British rider Lucy Wiegersma. "He could have done some horse trials last autumn, but I really wanted him for this year . . . if I mess up here and don't qualify, I'll take him to Burghley. Whatever, at the end of this year, he and I retire."

Tait has already embarked on his new career of breeding racehorses at a 100-acre farm in Karaka, just south of Auckland. He has six brood mares and the first draft of young stock will be going to the sales next January.

"It's only small and I don't think Coolmore will feel threatened, but we've used most of the Coolmore stallions to date while they're in Australia."

Best of the Irish in the three-star section is Sasha Harrison, in ninth place with the New Zealand-bred Ambrose. The home side are higher up the order in the two-star, however, with Lieut Geoff Curran leading for much of the day on the nine-year-old Kilmessan, only to be overtaken by Scotland's Peter Laidlaw, whose test with the mare River Rose gave him a 3.4 penalty advantage.

The remaining two-star runners will be put through their dressage paces this morning, the afternoon reserved for the young rider class and the Olympic-format competition, in which five teams of four will ride the test to be used in Athens.