IRISH Olympian Shane Sweetnam and Coriaan van Klapscheut Z scored a victory in last Friday's five-star $62,500 Winning Round in Ocala following a 10-horse jump-off.

“I wanted to win, but it was hard to gauge what needed to be done to win,” said Sweetnam of the jump-off course. “There was a turn to the second-to-last jump, which I wasn’t in love with. I sort of took a gamble there to go around and be fast, then do one less stride to the last jump. It worked out well. It was just a little bit of an awkward jump-off, so I wasn’t sure it would be enough. Thankfully it was.”

Sweetnam's win followed up on a fourth place finish earlier at the five-star show on James Kann Cruz (ISH) and a second with Balou H in the Grand Prix Qualifier.

With only the top 10 qualifying for the tiebreaker, even though a dozen went clear, the competitiveness was off the charts and, seeking tiny margins everywhere, seven of those came a cropper. Sweetnam and Coriaan got the balance right as the quickest of the double clears in 38.50 ahead of McLain Ward (USA) with Lestro vd Valckenborg.

Sweetnam started riding Coriaan in FEI classes a year ago, but they now have 18 top-five FEI finishes, including a four-star grand prix win two weeks ago.

“He was still quite green last year, but got some really good results all year,” he said of the 10-year-old Zangersheide gelding by Comme Il Faut x Lord Z. “The end of last year he won a good grand prix, and then another at his last show, so now we expect a lot Stephanie Macieira (BRA) and Toulouse van’t Prinsenveld Z who claimed third with a time of 38.48 seconds.