IRELAND’s Cathal Daniels recorded his first international victory with Sarah Hughes’s Barrichello when landing the CCI4*-S last Saturday at Barroca d’Alva on the first weekend of the inaugural Portugal Winter Tour.

Daniels completed on his winning dressage score (29.7 penalties) with the 11-year-old British-bred Balou du Rouet gelding while, with 2.8 cross-country time penalties, he placed sixth on the same owner’s US-bred ex-racehorse, My Lucky Day (40.1), who had been lying 14th after the first phase.

Having finished two seconds over the time on Saturday’s concluding cross-country phase, Britain’s Ben Hobday moved up into second with Shadow Man (31.5), switching places with Australia’s Sammi Birch who picked up 4.8 penalties on Hunter Valley II (35.6). There were only 15 starters in the class but they represented nine different nations.

Barrichello had travelled out with Daniels to Le Lion d’Angers last month as he had been entered in the five-star at Pau the following week but, when plans were altered, the decision was taken to bring the chesnut to Portugal instead.

“Barrichello was due a four-star win. He felt great and, being very fit, was the only one to beat the time,” commented the Kildare-based rider who has undergone numerous Covid-19 tests in recent weeks as, after Le Lion, he was show jumping in Opglabbeek and Lier in Belgium.

“None of my horses have been entered for the second event out here but he may not run in the third either as he has nothing to prove. Tokyo is very much in the mix next year but his early season target will be either Badminton or Kentucky. I was really pleased with My Lucky Day too. He may well do the four-star long here next month and Badminton is his target next year.”

Bouncing back

Following her disappointing run at Le Lion, where she was retired on the cross-country phase, Daniels partnered Hughes’s Shannondale Mari to finish second (35.5 penalties, including 3.2 for time across the country) in the CCI3*-S which was won, on his dressage score, by Thailand’s Korntawat Samran riding Bonero K (31.5).

“I was delighted with Mari. She really showed her true colours and that was a proper four-star horse who beat her,” said Daniels of the seven-year-old Shannondale Sarco St Ghyvan mare whose 2020 campaign started at Barroca in late February when she won the CCI2*-S.

The rider had a second string to his bow in last weekend’s 19-runner class also, finishing 12th on CDS Boleybawn Freedom (52.5), a 2013 Dignified van’t Zorgvliet gelding he owns in partnership with Gerry Leahy. The pair are also joint-owners of the six-year-old OBOS Quality 004 gelding The Little Lion Man (45.7) who finished 10th in the CCI2*-S won by Sweden’s Ludwig Svennerstal on Jumble (31.4). Here, Daniels was 13th on his own CDS Cairnview Romolu (66.7), a son of Omar.

“That was a first three-star for the seven-year-old, so you’d have to be happy with that, while the six-year-old really impressed on his first international start. I’d an early stop on the course with Romolu but he was foot-perfect after that and, as he is nine, I’ll move him up quickly,” said Daniels who, obviously enjoys competing at the Portuguese venue as he concluded by saying, “I hope to have a good team back here in the spring.”

Also competing at Barroca, and similarly sitting out this weekend’s action, are the Kuehnle siblings, Jenny, who celebrated her 19th birthday last Monday week, and Brian.

The former had two rides in the CCI3*-S and put in a highly creditable performance to finish fourth, just one second over the time across the country, on her father Hans’s German-bred mare Polly Blue Eyes (36.6), her mount in last year’s European Junior championships at Maarsbergen. Jenny was 11th on another mare, Nekita (48.5), who, too, belongs to Hans.

Sixteen-year-old Brian competed in the same class and was most disappointed to pick up his first cross-country jumping penalties on his father’s 10-year-old Capitalist gelding Tullibards Now Or Never, whose stop came late on the course.

The Portugal Winter Tour continues this weekend, when the highest-graded class is a CCI3*-S, with a CCI4*-L featuring on the programme for the final event which runs from December 2nd to 6th.