Italy leads in the team and individual rankings after the first day of dressage at the Failte Ireland IFG European Championships in Punchestown, Ireland. Susanna Bordone rode Ava to a commanding lead with 33.8 penalty points, six points ahead of Ireland´s Sasha Harrison in second place with 39.8. Mary King of Great Britain is in third place with 40.60 on her seasoned campaigner King Salomon, who has placed in the top five at four four-stars in his career.

Leading the team competition with 86.6 penalties, Italy is followed by Great Britain with 95.4 and France with 99.6. Ireland sits behind Sweden and Germany, respectively, with a toal of 109.4. 29 competitors entered the ring today and the rest of the field will contest the championship tomorrow.

The event is part of the International Sporthorse Show at Punchestown, which also hosts the FEI Emirates Airline Open European Endurance Championships and the Paddy Power Hunt Chase Championship and Grand Prix Jumping, sponsored by Bloxham Stockbrokers. Competition is fierce but friendly, with competitors and spectators from various countries mingling in the spectator stands and cheering on their teams. The trade fair is extensive and an amusement park, complete with a ferris wheel that dominates the skyline of the grounds, is set up for entertainment.

The home country´s hopes were raised early in the day when individual competitor Jonty Evans, riding Cregwarrior, took the lead with 41 points, then two and a half points ahead of Great Britain´s Leslie Law of Shear L´Eau. Six riders later, Ireland conceded the lead to Bordone who snatched it away and held on to it until the end to best a field including Anna Sasso of Sweden, Jeanette Brakewell and Mary King of Great Britain, and Sasha Harrison of Ireland, all world class competitors. Jonty remains in fifth place and Law in sixth, though everything should change dramatically tomorrow as Pippa Funnell, William Fox-Pitt, and a range of other top riders enter the arena.

Bordone, who comes from Milan and has a degree in Politics from Pavia University, spends the season from February to October training in England with Eddie Stibbe and also receives dressage help from Pammie Hutton. Louise Walsh rides her horses when she isn´t available. Only 22 years old, she competed in her first International competition at Wiesbaden, Germany in 1998. She also did several European Young Rider Championships and last year she placed 31st at the World Equestrian Games in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.

Mary King, a longtime standout of British eventing, made the British team for the Europeans just two weeks ago when Tina Cook had a fall on cross-country and suffered a concussion. Officials stopped King at the ten-minute box and told her not to proceed because she would be needed on the team here. “When I saw them coming, I knew what they were going to say,” she said.

King competed at her first European Championships here at Punchestown in 1991. “I was in a daze all week,” she remembered. This time around she has a lot of experience under her belt: this will be her fourth European Championship, not to mention her place on the 2000 Olympic team, and she is riding a horse who also has his share of mileage.

“Sully was great today,” she said. “He had a lovely test. I had a senior moment and forgot to stop and reinback at C so I had to come around again and reinback. We got a nine for it but we lost two points for the error. That sort of thing does seem to happen the older I get!” laughed the 42-year-old mother of two.

Commenting on course designer Tommy Brennan´s cross-country course, which is revamped this year with an historical and cultural Irish theme, King said, “This year it looks like a lovely big galloping track with a lot of well-dressed fences. There´s so much water on the course but the water features are absolutely amazing.”

Ireland´s Sasha Harrison, riding her French horse All Love du Fenaud, is excited by her opportunity to ride in front of an Irish crowd on Sunday. “It should be great with all the Irish cheering and screaming as only the Irish can do,” she grinned. “It certainly is a highlight of my career to ride in front of the home crowd.”

A professional beauty therapist from Craigavon in Northern Ireland, Harrison, 28-year-old Harrison was voted sportswoman of the year in 1999 and 2000 in a Coca-Cola sponsored award. She represented Ireland at the WEG in Jerez last year, riding All Love du Fenaud, and at the European Championships in 1999 and 2001. Currently she trains with Rodney Powell and Pammie Hutton, both in England. Harrison said that the big gelding, who she has been riding for nine years, is like a part of the family. “I know what he´s thinking and it´s really lovely,” she said. “Dressage is his strongpoint but I´m looking forward to getting out there on Saturday.”