IRELAND IN SIXTH PLACE AFTER OPENING EURO CHAMPIONSHIP CLASS

IRELAND lay in sixth place of 19 teams after today's (Tuesday) opening speed class at the FEI European Show Jumping Championships held in Herning, Denmark.

Drawn as first rider of the competition, Cork's Shane Sweetnam delivered a fault-free round on Amaretto Darco, the stallion he owns jointly with Spy Coast Farm, and held the lead for a good part of the class, but at the end claimed 12th place of the 76 combinations who finished the course.

Mayo's Cameron Hanley also went clear on Eleonore Paschoud and Yves Bouvier's gelding Antello Z, finishing in 18th, while Shane Breen and his own stallion Balloon had one fence down to finish in 25th. Co. Down's Conor Swail with Sue and Ariel Grange's stallion Lansdowne were unlucky to have two mistakes in the class, and finished in 42nd.

With the team's best three scores counting, Ireland held sixth place overall at the end of the first day on a penalty total of 9.42 against leaders France, who had a total of 3.14 penalties.

The Irish quartet now go into Part One of the European Nations' Cup early on Wednesday morning, with the top ten teams then competing for the final honours on Thursday evening.

Following today's opening class Ireland's show jumping team manager Robert Splaine said: "After the course walk with the team we felt we could do well, and the team delivered on that. There's not a lot between us and the first-placed team at the moment, but this is just one of the three legs of the team championships and we need to keep our heads down, as there is a a lot of serious jumping still to be done."