Kenny and Chawke in the winner’s circle

Eddy Blue and Darragh Kenny (Sportfot)

Darragh Kenny made the relatively short journey to Deauville from Paris, where he had been on standby for the Underwriting Exchange Irish Show Jumping team for the Olympic Games, and the US-based Offaly native delivered at the Classic Show with a four-star triumph Prix Hermès Sellier early on and a runner-up finish in yesterday’s Grand Prix.

Both stellar efforts were in conjunction with Eddy Blue, a 12-year-old gelding owned by Carol Sollak.

In the Grand Prix qualifier, they were 58th of a mammoth 81 competing combinations into the ring and their time of 64.07 seconds, while jumping clear over the 1.50m track, survived the remaining challenges. Given that there were 31 clear rounds in total in the speed class, those challenges were considerable but the time proved too hot for them all, with local hero Kevin Staut and Dialou Blue PS runner-up.

Amazingly, the first and second horse were both bred at the Paul Schockemöhle Farm.

Kenny and Eddy Blue were desperately close to securing a four-star double yesterday. This 1.55m test was a stiff one compared to what the pair had faced earlier in the week and only five of the 50 combinations made it into the jump-off.

Cork pilot, Billy Twomey and his 16-year-old Chat Botte ED were very unlucky to miss out narrowly, leaving all the fences intact but registering one time fault.

Home favourite, Mathieu Billot was first into the arena for the tie breaker with Lord de Muze and they actually set the winning time of 37.12. Kenny and Eddy Blue were next and jumped clear in 37.63 to secure the middle podium position, making it a very fruitful week for the partnership.

An Irish combination that did pull off a double, at three-star level, was the fairly new tandem of James Chawke and Daido van’t Ruytershof Z (pictured below). They have enjoyed plenty of success already this year after Chawke stepped into the saddle and following a break for the ten-year-old mare, they resumed impressively by adding Sunday’s €75,000 FEI Grand Prix at Thunderbird Show Park in Canada to another three-star triumph earlier in the week.

Chawke is from Abbeyleix, Co Laois originally and he is optimistic that he has a ranking horse on his hands after bagging first prize of €33,286.11 with a double clear and a jump-off time of 36.84 seconds that was almost two seconds quicker than that produced by Paris Olympian Tiffany Foster (CAN) and Electrique.

“She did that easily enough,” Chawke said of Daido van’t Ruytershof Z. “We bought her with the idea that she would at least do (ranking classes). She jumped her first four-star here in May, and she had a couple down, but nothing (major). I feel like she can do that for sure.”

“(My strategy was to) just to go as fast as I could. I knew just having those couple  behind me, like Tiffany and Katie (Laurie), that they were going to be very fast.

“I was quite fast from one to two, and then obviously the gallop home. But no matter what, she’s just naturally so quick.”

Chawke and Daido scored at the very first attempt off the mare’s little spell of recharging the batteries, in a speed class on Wednesday. They pair earned top prize of just under $15,000 by ripping around the Grand Prix Arena clear and in an unbelievable time of 57 seconds flat, more than three seconds better than runner-up Kassidy Keith (CAN) and Havana. There is more to come from this pair for sure.

Denis Boombastic posted a third-place finish in four-star competition Longines Global Future Champions event in Valkenswaard. The 1.45m class was won by Belgian Wilm Vermeir and his nine-year-old chestnut mare Eytuka of Two Notes Z.

Lynch and his ten-year-old gelding were one of a dozen to go clear in the initial phase and Mr Boombastic was quick and error-free to ensure a podium position for the Tipperary athlete.