THE Irish eventing team secured the bronze medal at the FEI Eventing Nations Cup Final at Military Boekelo in The Netherlands, with all four team members riding Irish Sport Horses and three of them finishing inside the top 20 individually. Ireland went into the competition aiming to build on its proud history at Boekelo, having won the Nations Cup in both 2015 and 2024.
Nine teams from across the world gathered at the Dutch fixture to compete for Nations Cup honours and bring the season to a close.
High Performance eventing manager Sam Griffiths had selected his original team as Susie Berry on Strangford (ISH) (Luidam x Templepatrick Dara Bay by Cruisings Micky Finn), Padraig McCarthy on Kilroe Tiger (ISH) (Hype x Coolcorron Imp by Master Imp), Godfrey Gibbons on Kilnamac Kasu (ISH) (Kannan x Kilnamac Sue by Cruising) and Patrick Whelan on Altitu (ISH). Unfortunately, Whelan’s mount had to be withdrawn before the dressage, so Elizabeth Power on Dassett Fortune (ISH) (Diarado x Mist Flight by Golden River) became the fourth team member.
Dressage
The dressage phase went very well for the Irish squad, with Berry and Strangford scoring 28.0 on just their fourth competition together (the horse was previously ridden by Steven Smith) - the lowest score of the horse’s career at any level to date. His previous best dressage score was 30.1 at Mallow 2*-L in 2023 under Smith, while his previous four-star best of 32.2 was recorded at Bramham this year. This put Berry in joint 17th place individually at the end of the first phase.
Gibbons and Kilnamac Kasu also did particularly well, scoring 30.2, which is a personal best for the horse - beating his previous best of 31.1 at Charlbury 3*-S in 2024 and also improving on his last outing at Blenheim 4*-S. Power and Dassett Fortune scored 33.5, while McCarthy and Kilroe Tiger scored 30.4.
Following dressage, the Irish were lying in fifth place overall on a score of 88.6.
Griffiths was suitably pleased, saying: “I’m thrilled. Every rider has done a personal best, so there’s nothing more I can ask for. Obviously, it’s a three-phase competition, but we’re excited and looking forward to the rest of the competition.”
Cross-country
As ever, the Irish performed well on the cross-country course, with Berry adding just 1.2 time penalties to her dressage score, putting her on 29.2 and moving her to ninth place individually.
Power finished clear within the time allowed to remain on her dressage score, moving her up to 26th place at that stage. McCarthy also sailed round the cross-country without penalty, moving him up to 14th place individually. Meanwhile, Gibbons had a less favourable round, picking up jumping and time faults, but completing nonetheless. Ireland moved up to fourth place following cross-country on a score of 93.1, just behind the USA on 91.8, with a podium place in sight.
Final phase
The show jumping phase often sorts the wheat from the chaff, with the previous days’ efforts taking their toll - but the Irish squad did not falter, despite the pressure and the desire to finish on the podium. A battle with the USA ensued.
First in for the Irish, Power rode an impeccable clear round inside the influential time allowed of 84 seconds, finishing on her dressage score of 33.5, moving her up to 16th place individually
The USA’s Lauren Nicholson jumped clear on Landmark’s Jungle Gold, but being two seconds over the time allowed, meant that the lead over Ireland was reduced to just 0.5 penalties.
McCarthy just tipped the final part of the triple combination at fence five to incur four faults for a final score of 34.4 and 19th place individually, giving the USA a fence in hand to stay on the podium.
Jack Curtis and Luska Candy Clover were next in for the USA, but despite 11 consecutive international clear jumping rounds, they knocked fence three and were two seconds over the time, givingIreland a 0.3-penalty advantage.
Gibbons had a clear jumping round, but picked up 1.6 for time.
Alexandra Knowles and Montpellier Scais were last to go for the USA and two down gave Berry two fences in hand.
She aimed for a steady clear and achieved just that, picking up only 0.4 time faults to finish on 29.6, putting her in sixth place individually and giving Ireland another podium finish, with their lowest team score on record at the competition.
Germany (79.5) had a marginal lead over Great Britain (80.4) after cross-country, so it was all to play for between the top two teams in the final phase. After some tense rounds of jumping, Great Britain finished on the lowest team total in Boekelo FEI Eventing Nations Cup history to win on 84.4, just seconds ahead of runners-up Germany on 87.0.
Katie Magee (Cushlas Indigo), Gemma Stevens (Cooley Park Muze), Yasmin Ingham (Kinda Corvette) and Kirsty Chabert (Classic VI) made up the winning all-female British team. Just three combinations provided the counting scores for Great Britain, after Chabert’s cross-country elimination.
Ireland’s final score of 97.5 moved the team ahead of the USA, who had a costly final phase, and onto the podium in third place. The team from the USA had to settle for fourth place on a final score of 105.4.
Griffiths was delighted with the Irish result and said: “I’m absolutely thrilled with the performance. To back up the performance at the World Championships in Aachen with a podium finish here shows how consistent we are becoming.
“What’s so exciting is that the entire team of horses are nine-year-olds and that makes it so bright for the future.
“We also had a young team, horse-wise, in Aachen - so things are looking great.
“It’s very pleasing that we’re consistently challenging for podiums now and finished on sub-100 as a team. When you can do that, you’re always going to be incredibly competitive.
“We keep seeming to go head-to-head with the United States. They pipped us at Aachen and we pipped them here, but on the whole I’m over the moon and hopefully we can keep building going forward.”
Belgium placed fifth, followed by hosts the Netherlands in sixth and Switzerland in seventh. France and Sweden both had challenging cross-country phases and finished eighth and ninth respectively.
Susie Berry with Strangford \ Pam Cunningham/Irish Eventing Times
Over the moon
Berry and Strangford were impressive across all three phases, steadily moving up in the placings after each phase.
Afterwards, Berry praised Strangford: “I’m over the moon with Strangford’s performance in his first four-star long to help Team Ireland to a third-place finish in the Nations Cup Final.
“He’s only nine years old, so it’s such an exciting start to his four-star career. I’m still getting to know him and there’s so much more to come in the future.
“A lot of the credit needs to go to Steven Smith for doing such a wonderful job producing him to this level; it’s made my job very easy. And a big thank you to the Wilkinsons for trusting me to pilot such an incredible horse.”
Individually, Germany’s Julia Krajewski took glory with Ero de Cantraie. Krajewski was winning the individual title for a third time, making Boekelo history as the first athlete to achieve the feat.
With a podium position for the Irish team and Berry, Power and McCarthy all finishing inside the top 20, Boekelo proved very positive for Irish eventing.