The capacity crowd at Dublin Horse Show today watched the eight nations battle it out in the 6th leg of the Samsung Super League Nations Cup Competition.

First line riders for each country were: Alois Pollman-Schweckhorst - pictured below left (over the open water) - with the 9 year old gelding was first to test the Cottier track and he jumped a super round, which did not look slow and yet it incurred a time penalty when he came through the finish flags in 82.39secs on the 81second track with no jumping penalties to finish with one time penalty.

Cian O'Connor - pictured below right over fence 5 - for Ireland was next to try his luck on course and he came through the finish flags with time right but fence 5 on the ground to give him four faults with Waterford Crystal, the 14 year old Landgraf gelding.

Wim Schroder and Eurocommerce Vancouver tested the track for the Dutch team and he did not have a round to write home about when he lowered 3 fences and collecte a time fault as well.

Jean-Claude Van Geenberghe for Belgium headed the lineup with the first of four stallions on this team, Osta Rugs Quintus, a 12 year old by Pavarotti and they were doing a super job until the treble combination at fence 10 saw 10B fall and then also the last fence to leave them with 8 faults in the right time.

Pierre Jarry for France was another who fell victim to fence 5, which jumped across the middle of the arena towards the President's Box. Pierre was aboard the 10 year old Selle Francais mare,Haxelle Dampierre by Papillion Rouge.

First out for the favourites of the day, the United States was the only fellow on the team, Jeffrey Welles and Armani, the 10 year old gelding by Guidam, who now stands in Ireland with Tom Rowland of Knightfield Equestrian. Jeffrey was looking good until the treble at fence 10 which saw the final part fall but he left it at that to record a 4 fault first round.

The treble caused great difficult in the class, coming off a very tall triple bar, 6 strides to the treble combination of vertical, one stride, oxer, one stride vertical.

The Swiss were next out and their first line rider was Beat Mandli and Ideo du Thot, a Selle Francais gelding by Ariso du Theillet and they too lowered fene 10c to finish with four faults.

Last to go of the first line riders was Nick Skelton and the Hales Family owned stallion Arko. This ocmbination received a huge cheer of welcome as they came into the arena and an even bigger cheer when they produced the only clear round as they came through the finish flags. This combination, on their way to Athens Olympics last year produced double clear jumping in the Aga Khan.

Beat Mandli and Ideo du Thot - pictured left.

Jean-Claude van Geenberghe pictured below with Osta Rugs Quintus.