August 7, 2026 
“Don’t make it interesting, don’t make it interesting! We don’t need it, Shane, we don’t need it to be interesting!”
I’m shouting at my TV screen while Shane Sweetnam, rider for Ireland, aboard Coriaan van Klapscheut Z, charts his second pass around the course set by Alan Wade at the Gallagher Dublin Horse Show.
We’re in round two of the Nations Cup and we’ve reached the third rider of each team.
Shane takes a rail.
“Ohhhh, he’s making it interesting!” I moan.
Interesting because—after a first round so flawless that Ireland’s anchor rider, Cian O’Connor, sat it out, and after two double clear rounds from the Coyle brothers, and after Team USA’s Natalie Dean scored four faults—all Ireland needed was to not touch a rail to sail to either victory or a jump off.
But Shane touched something.
But what of it? All that did is make it interesting, it didn’t determine the outcome. That comes at the end. All hope is not lost for the Irish!
It’s the Irish Olympics, the best horse show on earth, and the one that matters most to anyone with any sort of Irish blood. You are born in Ireland with a bit of the horseman’s DNA and your ambition will be to one day show at Dublin and as soon as that’s accomplished, your ambition will be to one day WIN at Dublin. It’s only when that is accomplished that you can call yourself something more than just a ghost that barely lived, more than just some temporary bit of flesh that breathed once or twice before expiring, forgotten.
In other words, Ireland wants to win.
After his second round, Jordan Coyle pauses for an interview. An interview that doesn’t come off, because, riding in second position after his double-clear brother Daniel, he has also scored the double clear and emotion wells up and blocks his words.
But then Shane had to go and make it interesting!
Next up in the USA vs Ireland match race (because that is what this has become) is a Ms. Laura Kraut. She’s riding Baloutinue, her accomplished 16-year-old gelding. They had four faults and became the drop score in the first, otherwise faultless, round. Any sort of score here and USA is on four faults. A clear, however, and USA stays on zero.
(A note about Dean and her horse Mr. Boombastic’s four faults: What the actual—? That rail was nicked from above and jumped once! Twice! Maybe even three times! in the cups before deciding to jump down onto the ground. The news that it was on the ground came so late many suspected a sudden gust of wind or the hearty sneeze of a patriotic Irishman.)
One thing that can be said of Kraut is there is not a moment on the course in any class where she is not riding every stride. She is always RIDING. She does not approach a course like the smooth and motionless Daniel Deusser (not a superlative day for him despite his style–Germany finished fourth), but with a gusto that leaves the observer really a nervous wreck, especially considering today’s broadcaster Horse & Country’s commentary-less livestream.
There is no John Kyle, there is no Steven Wilde to keep me company and to calm me down.
There is only me and the competition being held 4,121 miles away as the crow flies.
Laura goes clear.
That puts Team USA on a total of zero.
And leaves what happens next to the Aga Khan trophy up to Ireland’s anchor rider, Cian O’Connor and his mount, Kentucky TN.
But everything went so well the first round that they’re not on their second round, but their first. And the question, like always, becomes: is it better to tackle the course fresh or is it better to tackle it practiced?
We decide the answer based on the results, or maybe we never decide the answer at all, because who really knows?
O’Connor and Kentucky enter the ring to tremendous applause. The crowd is jubilant, despite the moment, which is filled with unbearable tension.
Suddenly, the crowd sighs—what did he do? Did he stumble after the water? Well, I don’t know, I wish the crowd would shut up, I’m very stressed to be honest, I really don’t understand why riders like this game, you want 20,000 people, that’s 40,000 eyes (unless somebody’s lost one) on you while you navigate a course set by Alan Wade—
(As an aside, once, in Ocala, I approached course designer Alan Wade and, in an attempt at wit, I asked him cajolingly what “traps” he had set for the riders. Not only did he not answer me, he gave me a withering look and walked abruptly away. In that moment, I learned what an offense it was to suggest a course designer was looking to set “traps,” as I would doubtlessly do were I to design—is there a website where I can apply?—but his aspiration for the craft is something else entirely and I’ve been withering in shame ever since.)
—I can tell you I don’t want that and couldn’t handle it and you can base this very well by my almost complete inability to handle the stress of watching a round while 4,121 miles away or is it because I’m feeling impotent, I’m not there, twitching my leg, throwing it sideways on the kiss-and-cry, I’m—
O’Connor takes out the middle of the triple and Ireland ends on 4.
I’m heartbroken but I’m happy because what a triumph for Team USA! Ending on zero! Notching past the Irish, only—that really IS sad. I was rooting for them! But look at those double clears laid down by Karl Cook and Paris Sellon, and let’s be honest Dean and Kraut brought it today, they kept up the fight! The Irish luck ran out, that is all, only to ascribe their obvious talent to luck really isn’t accurate! In the end, it was so close as to be almost a tie!
In third come the Swiss to round off the podium.
Now let’s get to the Guinness!
