Show jumping: The home side came back with a bang at the RDS yesterday as Cian O'Connor and Capt Shane Carey burst through into the winner's enclosure to avenge the previous day's double by British ace Robert Smith.
Army rider Carey, desperately disappointed to be left on the subs bench for today's Aga Khan Trophy, more than made his point with a classy performance in the Power and Speed to take the €4,000 purse for his first international win at Dublin.
Teamed up with the 12-year-old Clover Hill gelding Killossery, Carey produced a masterly clear over the testing power section of the track, and then let rip over the speed half to slice more than two seconds off the target set by Peter Smyth and the trotting mare Zara's Pride.
Germany's Alois Pollmann-Schweckhorst obviously hadn't read the script that made it an Irish one-two, and rewrote his version of the screenplay to squeeze into second.
The win was all the more remarkable as Killossery, bred by Frank and Laura Glynn in north Co Dublin, missed the early part of the season after surgery to remove a chip of bone from a front fetlock joint. But even the win wasn't enough to take away the sting of being left off today's cup team. "It was the first Aga Khan team I could have been on," the 26-year-old said.
The news at the beginning of the week that Cian O'Connor's Olympic ride Waterford Crystal was coughing and would not be jumping in Dublin had given Carey hope that he would get the nod for this afternoon's team. But O'Connor, who also proved that he was in winning form yesterday, was still preferred with his second string Annabella.
O'Connor's moment came in yesterday's featured Speed Derby, and again it was with the little buzzy mare ABC Landliebe.
Runner-up behind Robert Smith and Gerry Maguire on Wednesday, O'Connor had said that the mare would be better the second day, and so it proved.
Chasing the target set by world champion Dermott Lennon and Impact, O'Connor slashed off well over four seconds. Frenchman Patrice Delaveau spoiled the Irish one-two by nudging Lennon down to third.