DOUBLE Olympic gold medallist Laura Collett made her trip to the Emerald Isle a useful one with two horses in the top three in the Troytown Equine Centre CCI3*L class.

Leading after the dressage, no one could catch C-let’s dance Van De Beemd’s score of 22.8, to which they added nothing during the jumping phases. The eight-year-old gelding was stepping up to his first long format competition and seemed to take it all in his stride.

Collett took over the ride on the horse at the end of last year and has been producing him slowly this year. “I’m learning more about him with each run and have learnt that he needs to have quiet runs in between his faster ones as otherwise I find his brain just doesn’t quite work with me, so he’s had two easier runs since his last International run and it seems to have done the trick!”

Izzy Taylor and Hathaway Royale were the only other combination to finish on the dressage score in the class to take second place. This combination were a winner last time out at Burgham International in the CCI3*S. The ground jury of Sturat Bishell, Vanda Stewart and Agnieszka Mossakowska had Taylor on a score of 27.7 after dressage.

Sian Coleman and J’Taime Carrogar were best of the Irish after dressage in third place on a score of 30.2 but a refusal late on the cross-country course moved them down the final leaderboard to finish in eighth place, highest placed Irish rider. Taking third spot on the final podium was Collett, this time with To Kalo Arlo, who just added four penalties in the show jumping arena to their dressage (33.0). This combination was first out on the cross-country track and put in a fast clear inside the time to set the bar for the rest of the class. The eight-year-old, owned by Sheena Pilkington, had a top-six placing on Irish soil earlier in the summer at Kilguilkey House International and is an exciting one for Collett’s string.