DANIEL Coyle came agonisingly close to defending his title in the five-star Grand Prix of Rotterdam last Sunday with Legacy, in the end finishing second to Dutchman Willem Greve.

Coyle and Ariel Grange’s 13-year-old mare Legacy (Chippendale Z x Bon Ami) were one of 12 clears in the first round over the course set by Quintin Maertens and Louis Konickx. Against the clock, Coyle identified an inside turn back to the double at fence four, which meant going between a narrow opening between a fence and a car! The move paid off and he went into the lead in a time of 40.47 seconds.

That looked like it would be good enough to win until, last to go, Greve also took the inside turn and with the big striding stallion Highway M TN shaved almost a second off his time to win in 39.57 seconds. Coyle secured €30,500 for second place.

“Second place seems to be where I am at this week,” Coyle commented afterwards. “It was a great class. Jeroen Dubbleman helps me a lot and he said that for the jump-off, Willem would be a real danger. I had a good round, I’m not sure I could have been much faster.”

On Friday, Coyle and Legacy won the 1.50m Table A. The pair sped to victory in 61.67 seconds to beat Frenchman Julien Gonin into second place with Caprice de Guinfard.

Nations Cup runners-up

Michael Blake’s Irish team finished second the third leg of the Longines FEI Nations Cup of Rotterdam on Friday evening with the competition coming down to an exciting battle between Ireland and The Netherlands, who won for the third year in-a-row.

Michael Duffy, Trevor Breen, Cian O’Connor and Daniel Coyle finished just behind the home nation of The Netherlands with four clear rounds to put 80 points on the board in the European Division one standings.

Blake selected an experienced team and pathfinder Michael Duffy from Galway was absolutely foot-perfect with the 14-year-old grey mare Cinca (Casall x Carthago), owned by Hibernian Sport Horses Ltd.

West Sussex-based Tipperary rider Trevor Breen was next to go with his mother-in-law Heather Black’s 11-year-old home-bred gelding Highland President (Clinton x Kannan). The pair knocked the bogey fence – the vertical at fence nine after the triple combination – and also lowered the first part of the double at fence 11.

Cian O’Connor was third to go with Nicole Walker’s inexperienced nine-year-old mare Eve d’Ouilly (Qlassic Bois Margot x Poor Boy) and she looked every inch a star for the future when only faulting at fence nine.

Daniel Coyle was in the anchor man position with Ariel Grange’s 12-year-old grey stallion Gisborne VDL (VDL Zirocco Blue x Goodtimes). He produced a perfect clear to leave Ireland on four faults at the half-way stage, just one fault ahead of the Dutch.

Ireland produced more clears second time out but the Dutch added only one time penalty to sneak it in the end. Duffy produced one of just two double clears; the other delivered by Harrie Smolders with Monaco N.O.P.

Breen faulted at the second part of the double for four faults, before Cian O’Connor produced a brilliant clear which looked like it would nearly be enough to win. However, the home nation of Jur Vrieling, Leopold van Asten, Maikel van der Vleuten and Smolders never gave up. Second last to go, Smolders had to jump a clear to keep the team’s hopes alive, and he did so, piling the pressure on Coyle.

With just two faults separating them, Coyle had to keep all the jumps up or have no more than one time fault to win. The combination unfortunately faulted early in the course to drop Ireland to eight faults and hand the win to the Dutch on six.

Germany finished third on 24 faults, ahead of France on the same score and Italy on 36.