Aga Khan report: After all the in-fighting, the back-biting and the politicking, Ireland's show-jumping team allowed their horses to do the talking for them yesterday as they swept to a magnificent victory in the Aga Khan Cup for the first win on home turf since the Millennium.
"It was the toughest day I've spent in Dublin in my life," team trainer Eddie Macken, a veteran of nine winning Aga Khan teams, said yesterday after the quartet of Cian O'Connor, Marion Hughes, Jessica Kurten and Billy Twomey gave the ecstatic crowd the result they craved.
If there had been a roof on the arena it would have been lifted to the heavens as team anchorman Twomey produced a sensational double clear - one of only three in the entire competition - to clinch a win that will send the Irish off to Athens on a wave of euphoria.
Things didn't start off quite as planned when pathfinder O'Connor picked up eight faults with Irish Independent Annabella, the mare he had put in as a replacement for his top horse, Athens-bound Waterford Crystal, after the gelding developed a cough last weekend.
Hughes and Kurten put things back on track with just a fence off apiece, but it was Twomey's clear with the stallion Luidam that got the home side back in the hunt.
With a first round total of eight faults, Ireland were in a four-way share of second, one fence adrift of the Belgians but, worryingly, the Italians were up at the sharp end too.
With the spectre of relegation from the Samsung Super League looming, Ireland wanted to ensure a result that would put a bit of space between themselves and the Italians at the bottom of the table.
The Irish were out to prove a point and they proved it by blasting the opposition clean out of the water in the second round.
O'Connor produced the first clear and there was only a minor blip when Hughes and her Athens ride Heritage Fortunus clipped the front rail of the second last. But it was only a temporary setback as Kurten came home with a magic zero to put the pressure back on to the resurgent French, winners in Dublin for the past two years.
When French anchorman Jean-Marc Nicolas returned a four, Billy Twomey was left in the hot seat - either put in a second clear or else Ireland would be jumping off against the French for the honours. But despite horrendous pressure, the Cork man did the job to perfection.
Clear all the way, the win was in the bag and the crowd went into orbit, along with Twomey's hat which he flung into the air in celebration.
It was the perfect pre-Olympic outing, but a bittersweet one for Twomey, who travels to Athens as reserve rider because Luidam was lame when final entries for the Games closed. "It is frustrating," he said after yesterday's triumph, "but what can I do about it."
There was no hint of that disappointment in Twomey's face as he was presented with his winner's sash by the President, Mrs McAleese. Team morale, which had been so rocked by the saga of Macken's sacking and reinstatement as team trainer earlier in the summer, was suddenly at an all-time high.
"We may not be among the favourites [for an Olympic medal\] but you win nothing when you're unlucky," Macken said yesterday. "If we get just a little bit of luck I feel in my heart that we could be in the medals."
Samsung Super League placings: 1, France, 44.3 points; 2, Britain, 32.5; 3, Germany, 32.3; 4, Holland, 29.5; 5, Belgium, 28.5; 6, Ireland, 25.5; 7, USA, 25.0; 8, Italy, 10.