Kürten retains her two ranking

EQUESTRIAN: Jessica Kürten has retained her world number two ranking for the fifth consecutive month.

The 37-year-old, who was dropped from the team for last Friday's Samsung Super League round in Lucerne, is now 574 points adrift of long-time leader Marcus Ehning of Germany. The pair were separated by just 224 points in the rankings published at the beginning of last month, but Kurten had a relatively quiet May and was not convinced that she would remain in the number two slot.

Kurten left Lucerne last Friday morning after being dropped from the Irish team and did not wait to see the quartet of Shane Breen, Marion Hughes, Cameron Hanley and Edward Doyle finish in sixth, pushing Team Ireland back into last place in the Samsung Super League standings. Co Antrim-born Kurten is now on the road from her base in Germany to the money-rich fixture in Cannes, France where she hopes to pick up more points for the Gandini world rider rankings.

Trevor Coyle is next best placed of the Irish riders, holding onto 66th place, with Billy Twomey the only other Irish representative in the world's top 100, up 14 places from 97th to 83rd.

Most dramatic move in the latest standings is Cameron Hanley, who has leapt up an incredible 132 places from 304th to 172nd. Others on the upward trend are world champion Dermott Lennon, up from 106th to 103rd, Cian O'Connor, 148th in the previous list and now 124th, and Ryan Crumley, up 66 places from 217th to 151st.

On the home front, Fáilte Ireland has come in as title sponsor for the Dublin Horse Show for the second successive year. The Fáilte Ireland Dublin Horse Show will be held at the RDS from August 9th-13th.