IRISH show jumpers have scored three five-star wins at the London Olympia Horse Show, which runs until Sunday at the central London venue.

Darragh Kenny was first off the mark when winning Wednesday’s 1.55m Santa Stakes with Ann Thompson’s Important de Muze when setting a time of 33.70 seconds, beating Britain’s William Whitaker into second place. Kenny also won the same class in 2018 aboard Cassini Z.

His first visit to Olympia, Mikey Pender travelled to London from a hugely successful show in Geneva, where he produced a clear first round in the Rolex Grand Prix, and was the joint winner of Wednesday night’s Cayenne Puissance with Paul van den Bosch’s Hearton du Bois Halleux.

The combination were one of three through to the fifth and final round of the competition and cleared the famously imposing wall at 7ft 2in to share the win with William Whitaker and RMF Charley, both taking home €6,750.

“It’s a pleasure to ride a horse like that,” Pender said. “It makes your job a lot easier. Everything you ask him he’ll do. He was a bit tense at first, but then he improved with each round.”

Waterford’s Anthony Condon was the next Irish winner when galloping to victory in Thursday night’s Ivy Stakes 1.55m jump-off class with Pat Hales’ SFS Vincomte to earn almost €7,000 and his first ever Olympia win.

Condon, who lives on the Shropshire/Cheshire border, was first to go in a competitive field of 33 and made it look easy on the nine-year-old by Veni Vidi Vici. Condon’s jump-off time of 38.53 was clearly beatable, but, surprisingly, none of the other five could produce a clear round. William Whitaker finished second with the fastest time of 34.48 seconds but a fence down.

“I wasn’t expecting to win the class looking at the list of riders behind me – Marcus Ehning, Scott Brash, Laura Kraut and Niels Bruynseels,” Condon said. “I just thought I would try and jump a clear round. The horse is still quite green at this level and he jumped a brilliant clear round and luckily that was enough to win. He just needs more experience and then he will be top class.”

The Longines FEI World Cup Qualifier takes place at the venue on Saturday afternoon. Coverage of the class will be shown on BBC Two HD from 1.45pm and live on FEI TV, while the 1.60m Turkish Airlines Olympia Grand Prix takes place on Sunday night. There will be coverage on the BBC Red Button from 6pm.

Full coverage from Olympia in next week’s paper