CORK’s Shane Sweetnam was back in the USA last weekend and made good use of the trip when winning the $132,000 U.S. Trust and Bank of America Merrill Lynch Grand Prix at the three-star show in Tryon Equestrian Centre.
Splitting his time between Europe and America this summer, as he is on Division 1 Nations Cup duty with Chaqui Z and Indra Van De Oude Heihoef, Sweetnam raced to victory in the feature class of the week aboard Main Road (Heartbeat x Irco Marco) to collect $43,500.
One of four combinations through to the jump-off, Sweetnam and the 10-year-old Swedish Warmblood gelding, who is owned by his own Sweet Oak Farm and Seabrook LLC, were last to go and raced through the timers in 44.67 seconds to relegate Guatemala’s Andres Rodriguéz Silva into second place.
Discussing his win, Sweetnam said: “I’ve had him since he was seven, so I know him really well. He’s had good results everywhere. He’s placed in the Dublin Grand Prix. He was good in Mexico City earlier this year. I went to Europe recently to compete and didn’t bring him with me because he couldn’t travel due to health restrictions for the US horses coming back from Mexico.
“This is his first show back since I got back into town, so we were a little wild in the first round, but the second round was better.”
Sweetnam plans to spend another week competing in North Carolina before continuing on with his summer schedule, which includes five-star appearances in Belgium, Germany and at the Dublin Horse Show. “I’m showing here next week and he’ll show again because he hasn’t really done much these past six weeks. His next show would be back in Europe after that.”
Sweetnam’s other win came in Friday’s 1.40m with Spy Coast Farm’s Kirschwasser SCF (Amaretto D’arco x Nabab de Reve). Sweetnam has produced the eight-year-old stallion in FEI classes since the end of 2017 and their clear in 37.83 earned them the top sport.
Galway’s David O’Brien, who works for Spy Coast Farm in Kentucky, finished fourth with Kioki Coffee SCF when picking up four faults in the jump-off.