Halifax, Mass.—Aug. 16  

For the third year in a row, the luck of the Irish prevailed at the Silver Oak Jumper Tournament, and this time it belonged to Paul O’Shea. Claiming the victory in 2013, O’Shea came back this year to not only win the $75,000 Agero Grand Prix, but also take the second place spot over Olympian McLain Ward, who eventually claimed third and fourth place.

Paul O’Shea on his way to victory in the $75,000 Agero Grand Prix aboard Skara Glen’s Dolphin.
Photo by Andrew Ryback Photography

The class posted 34 entries and after the first round, 17 returned to the grass field for a jump-off which turned into a battle between Ward and O’Shea for the top spots on the leader board.

Ward was the first to jump-off aboard HH Ashley and set the bar high finishing in a speedy time of 45.28 seconds. Three more riders tried to catch Ward’s time in their jump-off round, but only O’Shea and Primo De Revel, last year’s third place finishers behind fellow Irishman Kevin Babington and winners in 2013, were able to do it. The pair beat Ward and HH Ashley by 3 seconds with a time of 42.74 seconds.

Ward had one more shot at O’Shea with his second mount, Retiro, who produced a faster round than HH Ashley, but it was not close enough as they stopped the timers at 43.00 seconds.

It looked as if O’Shea would take first and Ward would take second, until O’Shea came back as the second to last to go with his third mount of the class, and beat Ward’s second place time in 42.68 seconds—knocking Ward into third place.

McLain Ward ended up in third and fourth places with Retiro (pictured) and HH Ashley. 
Photo by Andrew Ryback Photography

O’Shea contributed a great deal of his win to Skara Glen’s Dolphin’s owner, Ira Gumberg, for giving him the opportunity to compete the talented horse.

“I’ve been really lucky in this class,” said O’Shea after posing for pictures with fans and signing autographs after his win. “It feels great. All of my horses jumped super today, they couldn’t have gone any better and I’m very happy with them.

“Of course, McLain was the one the watch,” O’Shea continued. “His round was brilliant; he was so smooth. My plan was to leave out a stride to the double, which worked out, and that was it really other than to obviously go as fast as I could without getting flat. Skara Glen’s Dolphin has just stepped up to this level and he’s a fantastic horse. He’s very naturally fast, very rideable and very balanced so obviously we were going to try and do as well as we could, even though I was already in the lead with Primo De Revel.”

After a hard fought battle, Ward and Retiro finished in a very respectable third place and reflected on how his plans changed after watching O’Shea beat his time with HH Ashley.

“Ashley was great, but she’s not a super fast horse,” admitted Ward. “She doesn’t have that ground-covering stride and so I wasn’t surprised when Paul beat me, but I was surprised at how much he beat me by. I decided to do two leave-outs and I was going to try to do one less to Fence 1 to 2, but I didn’t, I didn’t believe in it. Maybe in a perfect world I would’ve gotten it, but there wasn’t much more I could do. I tried to do everything I could on Retiro, he responded great, but Paul had two great rounds and he was going to be very difficult to beat today.”

RESULTS: $75,000 Agero Grand Prix

1        Skara Glen’s Dolphin     Paul O’Shea     

2        Primo De Revel     Paul O’Shea     

3        Retiro     McLain Ward     

4        HH Ashley     McLain Ward     

5        Gentley     Filip de Wandel     

6        Primo Calypso     Paul O’Shea     

7        Entre Nous     Lauren Tisbo     

8        Paloubet     Wilton Porter     

9        Contiki     Nick Dello Joio

10       Le Conte     Andrew Kocher     

11   Luxina     Michael Hughes

12   Virginia W Z     Julie Welles