JUST over six months after his horse cheated death twice in the space of a month, Ireland’s Shane Sweetnam scored a win at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida with the 15-year-old Cyklon.

The Swedish warmblood stallion Cyklon, who is by Cardento out of a Cortus dam had an extremely difficult time last year with illness and multiple surgeries.

“He nearly died twice in June. We went to Europe, and just before we were to go to Mannheim, he colicked and he had to go for surgery.

“Then a week later, he got an infection in the guttural pouch.

“It was totally not linked to the colic, but it is very serious and a lot of horses start to bleed out and can die from it. He was in the stall, and he was lucky that it was during the day because if it were during the night, he could have just bled out.

“We were in Belgium, and the clinic was only 10 minutes away, so he got straight to the clinic. A specialist came in from France and did a couple of surgeries, and with the help of everyone there, he recovered. It is very rare.

“They do not know how it happens, but some horses just get it and a lot of horses do die from it.”

“Between the surgeries and everything, it took a long time for him to come back,” Sweetnam continued.

“He could not travel back to the U.S. for a while. He was there in the clinic for three or four months - nearly the whole summer. Then he came back and did quarantine in October.

“Lucky enough, Spy Coast can do their own quarantine, so he did quarantine there. I started riding him again there towards the end of October and then I started showing him again the first week of December.”

Bob Ellis set the course for Friday’s 1.45m speed competition with 71 entries and 21 clear rounds. Sweetnam and Cyklon, owned by Spy Coast Farm LLC, scored a superb win with an impressive round in 55.76 seconds.

“He feels great,” the rider declared. “He is only back properly in the ring since December. I did a couple of smaller shows, and this is his second week at WEF and he has been placed in all four classes, so I think he is happy to be back.

“He is an unbelievable horse, but that just shows you how much of a winner he is and what a horse of a lifetime he is, especially in these divisions. He is just a great horse.”

Sweetnam pushed the USA’s Jessica Springsteen and Davendy S into second place, with French rider Adam Prudent third with Vasco. Co Down’s Conor Swail finished fourth aboard Ariel and Susan Grange’s Cita with a time of 57.03 seconds.

In addition to their winning prize money, Sweetnam and Cyklon were presented with the Champion Equine Insurance style award for week five.

Sweetnam and Cyklon were back in the prizes on Sunday, finishing fourth behind Jessica Springsteen and Davendy S who scored their first win of the WEF circuit with a super fast round in 37.71.