After the success of the Irish eventing team winning team and individual silver at the World Equestrian Games in Tryon, North Carolina, all eyes turned to the Irish show jumping team.

The Irish team of Cian O’Connor riding Good Luck; Shane Sweetnam riding Chaqui Z; Shane Breen riding Ipswich Van De Wolfsakker, and Paul O’Shea riding Skara Glen’s Machu Picchu, were in sixth position (out of 25 teams) after the second round of team jumping on Thursday.

The team was unlikely to miss out on qualification for the Tokyo Olympics 2020, as they finished seventh in the team competition, with the top six teams gaining qualification.

Victory went to the home nation when America beat Sweden in the final jump-off round.

Speaking after the result, team manager Rodrigo Pessoa said: “We came close but not close enough. Overall, we made a lot of avoidable mistakes, too many mistakes over the three days and that cost us. At this level it is not very forgiving. It’s a shame [missing out on Olympic qualification]. We did everything we could.

“We lost the use of two good horses in the build-up, but we have to deal with that just like other countries. We came here with the best quartet available but we have come up short. We now have to go back to the drawing board.

“It will be tough at next year’s Europeans. A lot of very good European countries have missed out here [at the World Equestrian Games], on Olympic qualification so we have to re-focus and make a plan.”

Individual competition

Ireland’s only hope of a show jumping medal came from Cian O’Connor and Good Luck who went into the individual final in sixth place. Unfortunately, the pair had two fences down in the first round which left them missing out on qualification for the final round by one place.

Germany’s Simone Blum won the individual world title with 11-year-old mare DSP Alice.

The 2019 European Championships and the Nations Cup final in 2019 will give Ireland two more chances to qualify for Tokyo 2020.