WHEN Cathal Daniels claimed individual bronze at the European eventing championships at Luhmühlen, Germany last year, he was mirroring the achievement of Brian MacSweeney who, then a Lieutenant attached to the Army Equitation School, had recorded a similar result 38 years previously at Horsens in Denmark.

However, there was a different format to both competitions and little in common between the two riders’ mounts. Daniels’s partner was the diminutive mare Rioghan Rua, on whom he had won many team and individual medals at underage level and team silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games, while MacSweeney was on board the former top show hunter Inis Meain who he was riding in a three-day event for the first time.