IRISH riders were on form at the Morocco Royal Tour 2024, which ran from Thursday, September 26th until Sunday, September 29th at Rabat in Morocco.

Galway’s Jessica Burke got a good start to the day on Sunday, when she won the four-star 1.45m Jump-off class at Rabat. There were 39 on the start list, of whom 16 made it through to the jump-off.

Burke and the 13-year-old stallion African Affair jumped the fastest clear round in 35.82 to take the winner’s prize.

The 1.50m Nations Cup class was held on Sunday afternoon and chef d’equipe Michael Blake had chosen his team as Jessica Burke with the Irish Sport Horse Express Trend, Jenny Rankin with Ibiza, Seamus Hughes Kennedy with Irish Sport Horse ESI Rocky and Francis Derwin with another Irish Sport Horse Flexi K - the same quartet who won silver at the Longines EEF Series Final in Warsaw recently.

The Irish team were drawn first of the nine teams to jump and things didn’t quite go their way. First in, Burke finished on four faults; Rankin was next in and also incurred four faults. Hughes Kennedy and ESI Rocky performed under pressure, jumping an excellent clear round, while the discard score came from Francis Derwin and Flexi K, who clocked up an uncharacteristic eight faults. Ireland finished on a score of eight to put them in ninth place, which meant that they did not proceed to the second round.

Top 10

Friday saw a top 10 finish for Francis Derwin, when he rode Parvati AEG into ninth place in the four-star 1.50m class. Of the 49 starters, 18 jumped clear in the first round, including Derwin. There were only six combinations who jumped clear again and Derwin was one of those who incurred four faults in the second round.

Derwin was back in the placings on Saturday, this time riding Destina du Mesnil Z into fifth place in the four-star 1.50m Winning Round class. Derwin jumped a clear second round in a time of 36 seconds. The class was won by Khaled Almobty (KSA) on Davenport VDL in 32.78.