Belfast consider World Cup event

EQUESTRIAN: A meeting is to be held in Belfast tomorrow to decide whether an application to stage a qualifier in the 2005/'06 World Cup show jumping series should be made by the directors of the Belfast international horse show.

Event director Theresa McKenna will meet show director Alan Beaumont to discuss whether a proposal should be put to the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) seeking a qualifier for next year's fixture.

"We're undecided at the moment," Theresa McKenna said yesterday, the day after the show closed on a high note with a thrilling victory for Switzerland's Daniel Etter in the £81,000 Grand Prix. "A lot of the riders told me it would spoil the show to have a World Cup qualifier and it is a lot of added expense, but it would be very prestigious to have one in Ireland again."

The last Irish World Cup qualifier was held in Millstreet four years ago.

The inaugural Belfast show, with a budget of £1.2 million, lost £250,000 in 2003, but McKenna hopes cutbacks of £350,000 should reap dividends.

"You'd expect to make a big investment in something that has the potential to make such a huge turnover," McKenna told The Irish Times yesterday. "We saw it as an investment in future years, but we hope to have broken even this year."

Former World champion Franke Sloothaak and World Cup champion Markus Fuchs both expressed the view a World Cup qualifier would be detrimental to the show's success, advising that an application for the final itself would be more beneficial once the show is established on the international calendar.

Fuchs was one of 10 riders in the shake-up for Sunday night's feature Grand Prix in Belfast and his time of 35.79 seconds looked good enough to lift the £27,000 winner's purse with Royal Charmer. But fellow Swiss rider Daniel Etter made the most of his last-to-go draw, steaming home .69 of a second to the good for victory with the mare Hermine d'Auzay. The Berne rider, whose sister Andrea runs a massive breeding and dealing operation in Belmont, Co Offaly, was accorded a standing ovation.

Billy Twomey, one of three Irish riders through to the timed decider, hit the last fence with Anastasia to drop to fourth. Britain's Robert Smith, leading rider in Belfast last year, took the award again to win a £25,000 Chrysler jeep from sponsors Charles Hurst.

BELFAST INTERNATIONAL GRAND PRIX: 1, Switzerland's Hermine d'Auzay (Daniel Etter), 0/0 faults, 35.10 seconds; 2, Switzerland's Royal Charmer (Markus Fuchs), 0/0, 35.79; 3, Belgium's Osta Rugs Andiamo Z (Jean-Claude Vangeenberghe), 0/0,38,48; 4, Ireland's Anastasia (Billy Twomey), 0/4, 36.51; 5, Britain's Laguina (Richard Davenport), 0/4, 39.16; 6,France's Itot de Chateau (Michel Hecart), 0/4; 7, Ireland's (Lismakin) Captain Shane Carey), 4/0, 41.16.