Cian O'Connor, still just 21, has got his first team call-up for Kerrygold Dublin after two foot-perfect rounds in Falsterbo, Sweden helped clinch half of last Friday's Nations Cup double for Ireland's show jumpers.
The Co Kildare rider, who made his Nations Cup debut at the end of the 1999 season and played an important role in Ireland's record-breaking 10 victories in the Samsung series, has been put into exalted company for the Dublin outing.
O'Connor joins Ireland's European gold medal team - Dermott Lennon, Jessica Kurten, Peter Charles and Kevin Babington - with the quartet that will be fighting to defend last year's Aga Khan cup win to be named on August 9th, the eve of the Kerrygold Nations Cup.
"I knew I was in with a squeak of being on the team," O'Connor said last night after the squad was officially announced. "At the beginning of the year we all knew that it would be the European four plus one and my horses have just been going well enough over the past few weeks, so I'm happy."
O'Connor joins forces with Charles, Babington and Lennon at next week's Royal International Horse Show in Hickstead, where the Irish will be defending yet another of their 2000 victories.
