Peter Charles, the former European showjumping champion who was aiming for a record third consecutive victory in the Dublin Puissance this week, has had to pull out of the Kerrygold Horse Show due to injury.
Charles, who would have been part of Ireland's team in Friday's Aga Khan Cup, injured his ankle in a fall at Hickstead last month, splitting his Achilles tendon sheath in a fall during the Eventing Grand Prix.
The injury has been treated with rest and physiotherapy, but has failed to respond sufficiently and Charles, after two days of jumping at a show in Essex at the weekend, has been forced to withdraw from the Dublin team. He is to see an ankle specialist at a Hampshire football club in a bid to be back in the saddle for the European championships at the end of the month.
"It breaks my heart to miss Dublin," he said yesterday, "but I've got to be realistic. I'd have to be at least 90 per cent, but I tested it at the weekend and it's just not going to work . . . I don't want to let the team down."
Charles's last-minute withdrawal is a major blow to team hopes in the Nations Cup, and is the second piece of bad luck suffered by the Hampshire-based rider recently. He announced the retirement of his 1995 European gold medal ride, La Ina, last week and, within days, the horse he described as "possibly the best I'll ever have", Traxdata Nustria, died of a ruptured spleen.
The nine-year-old Belgian-bred winner of the Windsor Grand Prix in May was Charles's main hope of another European medal at the championships in Hickstead later this month and was also being geared towards next year's Olympic Games in Sydney.
Charles's place on the Irish team for this week's Kerrygold Horse Show, which opens at the RDS this morning, will be taken by Army rider Capt Gerry Flynn, who will ride Carraig Dubh and Diamond Explosion.