Irish Horse: Lynch joins European squad

Irish team manager Robert Spaline has named Denis Lynch as the fifth rider on the Irish squad that contests this week’s European Championships at Aachen.

With All Star 5, Lynch joins Aga Khan heroes Bertram Allen (Molly Molone), Greg Broderick (MHS Going Global), Cian O’Connor (Good Luck) and Darragh Kenny (Sans Soucis Z), for a testing outing that will determine whether or not Ireland qualifies a show jumping team for next year’s Rio Olympics.

Action at Aachen got underway yesterday with the speed leg of the championships that counts toward both individual and team classification.

The first round of the team is jumped today (Thursday) and after the second round of that tomorrow we will know not only the destination of medals, but also the result of Olympic qualification.

With Germany, France, Netherlands and Sweden already qualified, our main opponents for one of the three places available are Switzerland, Britain,and Belgium – that just edged us out of a slot at last year’s World Equestrian Games.

RTE Radio’s retrograde decision not to air even one live round from Ireland’s stunning Aga Khan win is being somewhat compensated for by TG4 opting to broadcast both tomorrow’s team final and Sunday’s Individual Championship from Aachen.

Brendan McArdle will present and there will be commentary from James Griffin and Jack Doyle. Tomorrow’s programme will run from 4.25pm until 6.40pm. On Sunday it will be at 4.25pm-5.10pm.

Both Bertram Allen and Denis Lynch were in action at the Global Champions Tour in Valkenswaard last weekend.

Bertram had a 1.45m win on Quiet Easy. However, in heavy rain, both riders retired in the first round of the Grand Prix, which was won by Marco Kutscher on Van Gogh, by Numero Uno.