CO Down’s Conor Swail continued his winning ways at the four-star Thunderbird Horse Show in Langley, Canada, last weekend by landing his fourth win in two weeks at the venue.

That win came in Thursday’s $75,000 CSI4*-W Maui Jim Welcome Stake with Rose Hill Farm’s Rubens LS La Silla (Rebozo LS La Silla x Cash). Irish course designer Alan Wade built a technical track which only yielded eight clear rounds from the 50 starters. Swail and the 12-year-old Selle Français stallion were the penultimate combination and they laid down a deceptively fast round to win the 1.45m speed class, leaving out strides throughout and breaking the beam in 70.61 seconds.

Just behind the winning pair were Mexico’s Juan Jose Zendejas Salgado and Tino la Chapelle (0/70.99) in second, ahead of USA’s Shawn Casady and Durango VDL (0/ 71.44) in third.

“When you walk around Alan’s (Wade) tracks, you always think they are sort of nice, straightforward tracks, but he’s always making you make all the right decisions,” Swail said after his win.

“He’ll catch you somewhere around a course if you’re not on it. I got a good draw with Rubens, and we had a certain amount of numbers [of strides] all the way around [that I wanted to get], and thankfully I got everything the way I wanted. He felt really smooth, and it made it very easy for me to ride him. It was a nice win, and I’m delighted for the horse. I thought he jumped fantastic tonight,” he added.

WORLD CUP

Swail then went on to score a runner-up finish in Sunday’s Longines FEI World Cup, a class he won in 2017.

American rider Uma O’Neill (23) jumped the only clear round aboard Clockwise of Greenhill Z to win the class without a jump-off, with Swail producing the fastest four-fault round (74.26 seconds) with Rubens LS La Silla, knocking only a careful plank vertical that fell often throughout the afternoon. O’Neill’s win was her first in a World Cup qualifier.

Challenging

Irish course designer Alan Wade challenged the riders with numerous technical nuances on course and said he never designs with a number of clear rounds in mind. “There were a lot of little tests out there,” Wade said. “[The course] was solved very early on— second horse in—so we knew it was solvable.

“There were a lot of riders with four faults that, I believe, felt that if they had a second chance, they would have gone clear. But that’s one of the great things about show jumping: You get one chance, and you have to take it. We got a lot of excitement and anxiety from people knocking polls late [in the class]. It doesn’t all have to be about speed [in a jump-off]. It is show jumping after all. I think it was good sport.”

Swail now leads the World Cup east coast sub league with 17 points.