THERMAL, Calif.--Ireland’s Conor Swail won for the second day in a row on Thursday, March 12, this time on Clonterm Obolensky in the $63,000, CSI4* 1.50m Welcome at Desert Circuit 10l.
Conor Swail on Clonterm Obolensky (Photo by High Desert Sport Photo)From a field of 41, 14 returned for the jump-off over the course set by by Peter Grant, and when Swail went, the time to beat had been set at 40.28 seconds by Kyle King on Kayenne Z.
In the end, a margin of less than half a second separated all of the top three.
“I saw Kyle’s time, and I already had an idea with my first round with Theo how quick I needed to go,” said Swail, referring to his first jump-off round on Theo 160, which resulted in two rails down but a quick time of 40.77 seconds.
With Clonterm Obolensky, Swail finished in 40.03 seconds to take over the lead and to ultimately win.
King and Kayenne Z finished second, and Canada’s Tiffany Foster on Battlecry was third in 40.45 seconds.
“I thought Clonterm Obolensky did very well,” said Swail. “Fences one, two, three, I think I was way quicker than the rest of the horses, and after that, everything came up lovely. I took an extra stride to the last just to make sure that we jumped it well."
"I’M ABSOLUTELY delighted with him"he said. "He was super in the jump-off. It was a quick enough jump-off, but thankfully, I was able to use his stride and his scope there to my advantage.”
Swail has ridden the 10-year-old Irish Sport Horse for almost exactly one year, and he has high hopes for the developing young horse.
“The horse is very, very talented as a young horse,” said Swail. “I was lucky enough that the boys thought it’d be a good idea to send him over from Ireland to me to develop him more. He has all the ability and scope. He is really, honestly, a championship horse. This year, we actually started off just the last few weeks with him, and he had a good week last week. He jumped in two classes last week in the CSI3*, and he was clear in them both. So again, we’re going in with good form this week.”
