Conor Swail Gets Second Win in a Row in $63,000 Balmoral CSI4* 1.50m Welcome

Thermal, Calif. – Ireland’s Conor Swail led a victory gallop at Desert International Horse Park for the second day in a row on Thursday, March 12. This time, Swail rode Clonterm Obolensky to the win in the $63,000 Balmoral CSI4* 1.50m Welcome at Desert Circuit 10, presented by KASK & Vogel.

Thirteen horses from the original field of 41 returned to the Grand Prix Stadium to jump off over the course designed by Peter Grant, with Swail and Clonterm Obolensky coming back toward the end of the pack. When they entered the ring, the time to beat had been set at 40.28 seconds by the USA’s Kyle King and his own Kayenne Z.

From there, it came down to a game of inches, as a margin of less than half a second ultimately separated all of the top three.

“I saw Kyle’s time, and I already had an idea with my first round with Theo how quick I needed to go,” said Swail, referencing his jump-off round aboard his first entry, Theo 160, which resulted in two rails down but a quick time of 40.77 seconds.

With Clonterm Obolensky, Swail blazed through the timers in 40.03 seconds to take over the top of the leaderboard and to ultimately take home the win. King and Kayenne Z finished in second, and Canada’s Tiffany Foster and Battlecry, owned by Artisan Farms LLC & Kent Farrington LLC, rounded out the top three on 40.45 seconds.

“I thought [Clonterm Obolensky] did very well,” continued Swail. “Fences one, two, three, I think I was way quicker than the rest of the horses, and after that, everything came up lovely. I took an extra stride to the last just to make sure that we jumped it well. I’m absolutely delighted with him. He was super in the jump-off. It was a quick enough jump-off, but thankfully, I was able to use his stride and his scope there to my advantage.”

Swail has been partnered with the 10-year-old Irish Sport Horse, owned by Oliver Raymond Glancy, for almost exactly one year, and he has high hopes for the developing young horse.

“The horse is very, very talented as a young horse,” said Swail. “I was lucky enough that the boys thought it’d be a good idea to send him over [from Ireland] to me to develop him more. He has all the ability and scope. He is really, honestly, a championship horse. This year, we actually started off just the last few weeks with him, and he had a good week last week. He jumped in two classes last week in the CSI3*, and he was clear in them both. So again, we’re going in with good form this week.”

For complete results from the $63,000 Balmoral CSI4* 1.50m Welcome, click here.

Desert Circuit 10, presented by KASK & Vogel, continues through Sunday, March 15, and features the $225,000 KASK & Vogel CSI4* Grand Prix on Saturday evening, March 14. To learn more about all competition at Desert International Horse Park, visit deserthorsepark.com.