At the beginning of 2019 Ireland’s senior team manager Rodrigo Pessoa’s brief had three major priorities – qualification for the Longines Nations Cup Final in Barcelona; a home Aga Khan win and Olympic qualification at the European Championships.

A second placed finish by our second team at Hickstead a couple of weeks ago secured one of seven places available for next month’s Barcelona final. So, now it is down to the Aga Khan and the Europeans.

In contrast to many a year gone by when Irish chef d’Equipes struggled to field an Aga Khan team with winning potential, Pessoa now has riches of talent at his disposal. With eight Irish riders currently in the top 50 of the Longines world rankings he can pick two strong squads.

Two years ago he learnt a sore lesson when he focused most of his power on the Europeans, this time Pessoa is determined to deliver a crowd pleasing home win at this week’s Stena Line Dublin Horse Show.

In Cian O’Connor (PSG Final), Darragh Kenny (Important de Muze), Paul O’Shea (Skara Glen’s Machu Picchu) and Shane Sweetnam (Cjaqui Z) he has a side who can deliver Ireland’s first win in the Cup since 2015.

Olympic Goal

Following the Dublin Horse Show, attention will turn to the European Championships in Rotterdam on 19-25 August which has three Olympic places on offer.

With Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Holland already qualified from the 2018 World Equestrian Games Ireland’s main opposition for one of those Tokyo slots will come from France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Britain.

Pessoa has largely stuck with his Dublin riders for the European Championships but has made some changes to the horses selected.

Darragh Kenny goes with his star of the season to date Balou du Reventon. Cian O’Connor and Paul O’Shea remain with their Dublin mounts PSG Final and Skara Glen’s Machu Picchu. Shane Sweeetnam switches to Alejandro and Waterford’s Peter Moloney moves up from reserve on the Dublin Squad to be part of the named five with Princess Haya’s Ornellaia.

Rotterdam has been lucky for the Irish down the years with some good Nations Cup wins to our credit. One can also recall our team of Eddie Macken, Con Power, Gerry Mullins and John Roche winning a European bronze medal there in 1979. That would do nicely this time around to complete our hopes of the treble.