THE 1.60m winning Grand Prix stallion Chianti’s Champion has been sold to HRH Princess Haya’s Team Harmony stable and will be ridden by Waterford show jumper Peter Moloney going forward.

The stallion, who was owned by Jos Lansink and Onno Holtrust, has been produced by Dutchman Frank Schuttert since 2016 with wonderful success. The combination won the 1.60m Longines Global Champions Tour Grand Prix at Valkenswaard last August and went on to place third in the Super Grand Prix at Prague in December.

They were selected for the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon, and on their last outing together, in Doha just three weeks ago, they finished fourth in the LGCT Grand Prix.

The acquisition for Moloney is another boost to Team Ireland’s 2020 Olympic qualifying hopes, adding more horse power to the list for team manager Rodrigo Pessoa and his high performance back-up team to choose from.

Speaking to The Irish Field from the Spanish Sunshine Tour on Friday, Moloney said: “I am delighted to have such a good horse. Really all the credit must go to Princess Haya and Team Harmony.”

Moloney is now trained by Cian O’Connor and will base himself at O’Connor’s Frankfurt stable for the coming months. “Cian has come on board training us since the start of the year. We will go from here next week to Frankfurt to Cian’s stable and base and train there. We have six horses to go there.

“It’s early days yet with the new horse (Chianti’s Champion). I will go to Frankfurt and take a couple of weeks at home to get used to him. If Team Ireland select me during the year, I would delighted and thrilled for the opportunity.

“But for the moment I will just keep working away,” Moloney added.