The sixth round, held in Sweden, on Friday, 17th July saw a good testing track designed by Frank Rothenberger, where he asked for the riders and horses to jump off short distances and the enormous triple bar followed by the vertical water tray saw the most casualties in today's round.

Irishman, Cam Hanley commented that "the horses had their eye on the gate coming down to this one (the triple bar) and when they turned to the fence they could see the water through the triple bar so they took their eye off that too - it was a really difficult one to ride".

Today's track proved a touch taxing for the Belgians and Italians who did not make it through to round two - leaving USA, Germany, Netherlands, Great Britain, France, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland to fight it out for the all important points.

The Americans were in the lead coming into this round but now after finishing in 7th place on 28 faults they dopr to 2nd place on the leaderboard - giving France the lead after this weeks round finish of equal 3rd place on 17 points.

The Irish - under pressure on the home front, as the economy continues to worsen, tightening up sports funding and also the possible demise of the Army Equitation School, proved once again just how good they are when things are tough!

The team of Cameron Hanley, Captain David O'Brien, Daragh Kerins and Denis Lynch came out with a solid detrmination to show the world they are not to be discounted!

Daragh Kerins and Night Train produced one of only two double clears today - Cam Hanley and SIEC Livello gave the team a 5 fault round one and a clear in round two - Denis Lynch and Lantinus produced a four fault first round and then the cliching clear in the second round, while Captain O'Brien and Kiltoom were the drop score in both rounds. O'Brien rode 11 year old Kiltoom owned by the Minister of Defence and did a super job on a horse which is considerably less experienced at this level than his stablemates.

Coming out of the first round the Swiss were in the lead with just 5 faults recorded. The Irish and the Swedes were close on their heels though with just 9 faults recorded.

In the final round the Irish managed to find 3 clears from Hanley, Lynch and Kerins which put them into the lead when Sweden's Rolf Goran Bengsston had a 5 fault round two on the inexperienced Kiara La Silla and they had to be satisfied with second placing today.

The Swede was at a disadvantage as he was not able to ride his top horse Ninja La Silla after the horse stepped on a nail in the warm up ring on Monday and was just too lame to compete, thus forcing the younger grey mare Kiara to step up to the mark.

The Swedish crowd were on the edge of their seats hoping for a Swedish victory - and commentator Steven Hadley suggested that mare would have her work cut out for her as she had the 12,000 strong crowd riding on her back along with Bengsston.

Final results from todays round:
1st - Ireland (9 faults)

2nd - Sweden (14 faults)
=3rd - France (17 faults)
.......- Switzerland

=5th - Netherlands (21 faults)
.......- Great Britain

7th - USA (28 faults)
8th - Germany (29 faults)

9th - Belgium
10th-Italy

And the leaderboard now looks like this:

1st - France 36.5
2nd - USA 36
3rd - Switzerland 28.5
4th - Netherlands 27.5
5th - Germany 26
6th - Ireland 21.5
7th - Sweden 18
8th - Belgium 16.5
9th - Great Britain 13.5
10th- Italy 4

And the story now suggests that Italy will probably face relegation after the final race is run in Barcelona in September - France, the USA, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany would seem safe enough at this stage - but with so little between them and Ireland and Sweden working hard to stay in the top league anything could happen really.

Great Britain will have to pull out all stops next week in Hickstead to show their home crowd they deserve to stay in the top league and then the action moves to Dublin Horse Show for the penultimate round.