The Irish squad’s success at the 2025 Agria Blenheim European Eventing Championships is cause for celebration and an exciting start to this Olympic cycle.
The Irish team secured its first senior European eventing team medal in 30 years at Blenheim last week (report, 25 September). It followed hot on the heels of Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue’s second place at Defender Burghley – Ireland’s best finish at the Lincolnshire CCI5* since 1963 – and weeks after Ireland won team silver at the young rider Europeans (20–24 August).
The 2025 senior European Championships are the first in the cycle building towards the 2026 World Championships in Aachen and the LA28 Olympics. And for Ireland to have won a medal when the majority of horses on the squad are only 10 or 11 years old is promising for the future.
“We’ll enjoy this result but I think it’s fair to say we are building an excellent eventing programme and obviously now Aachen will be the next major target,” said Dag Albert, Ireland’s high performance manager for young riders and seniors, who took on the role this spring.
“We have an incredible pool of riders and horses now, it was actually very tough to pick six to come here – so you would have to be very excited for next year.”
Ireland has not been far off the podium in recent years. The team finished fourth at the previous Europeans in Haras du Pin, and has had major success to celebrate elsewhere including at five-stars and on the Nations Cup circuit. Irish rider Cathal Daniels won individual bronze at the 2019 European Championships.
Although the horses were new faces at senior championships, with the exception of individual Susie Berry’s campaigner Clever Trick, this was a side that had a wealth of valuable experience coming into Blenheim.
Experienced championship rider Padraig McCarthy, part of the world silver medal-winning side at Tryon in 2018, was riding 11-year-old Pomp N Circumstance. He was joined on the team by senior championship debutant Robbie Kearns, 27, with seasoned campaigner Chance Encounter, and Ian Cassells, who was part of the squad as an individual in 2023 and on the team for the first time at Blenheim with 11-year-old Millridge Atlantis. Aoife Clark completed the quartet with 10-year-old Full Monty De Lacense, a new ride this year with whom she has built a super partnership and was unlucky to have a fall during an otherwise great round at Blenheim. Sarah Ennis joined Susie as the other individual on the squad, riding rising star 10-year-old Dourough Ferro Class Act to finish 15th.
Padraig told H&H the team silver medal was a “massively significant” moment for Irish eventing.
“We had the medal in Tryon, and again it was a coming together of a very good bunch of horses at the right time,” he said.
He added that the difference this time was “maybe we didn’t have horses that could challenge for an individual medal like we did in Tryon”, but rather the strength as a team.
“We spoke a lot with the chef about that, and how for instance, last year [at Blenheim], one horse made the time in the long format out of more than 100 starters, which was a nearly [full] thoroughbred horse I had,” he said.
“So Blenheim is very hard to get the time traditionally. Added to that was the fact that Mark Phillips was designing the course; we knew that it was going to be ratcheted up in terms of difficulty. So our big focus this year was getting fast, experienced horses there.”
He added: “We knew that good, quick cross-country horses would probably get us very close to the podium on Saturday night. We went in there thinking we could, if everything went like it can do for us, that we should be in the top three at that point.
“For us, this week was all about the team.”
Looking ahead, he added that this is an exciting time for Ireland, nodding to the fact these horses now have championship experience, to the wider pool of talent, and Austin’s result at Burghley.
“Were punching well above our weight in terms of funding and support that other teams have and that’s not insignificant,” he said, adding that the majority of the backing comes from their owners, for which they are hugely grateful, and riders themselves. “I think we’re in a good place.”
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