Night Train

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SJFAN

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Just heard Steve Hadley give the sad news that Darragh Kerins is about to lose the ride on Night Train to Rodrigo Pessoa. What a blow for him and Ireland.
For some reason we have a ver slow broadband speed today and thus I didn't get the video stream for Round 1 on FEITV and only some snatches of commentary. Thank goodness BBC2 is to show Round 2 from 4.15.
 
it is owned by hunter harrison i believe who already owns another of rodrigo's horses. rodrigo has certianly admired it in the past.
 
It was 'rumoured' in the Irish Field on Saturday, and RP quoted as 'it is far too early to say' when asked if Night Train was coming to him as well as the other horse of Hunter Harrisons.

I wonder why - the same guy had his horses with Mclain Ward before, and transferred them to Darragh after a falling out.

Why is it that people who have the most money have the most power
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Fiona
 
Steve said that he'd asked Rodrigo yesterday and was told the horse would come to him on Monday. That's owners (well some of them) for you. At least Darragh rides for other people. There have been other cases where a rider rides exclusively for one owner only to lose their whole string. Even co-owning your horses doesn't prevent such situations - plenty of disagreements occur and the rider hasn't the money to buy out the other person. It's hard to see how Night Train could perform much better for Rodrigo than he does for Darragh. May get the chance to compete at more big money shows I suppose.
 
I don't know much about the North American circuit (only what reports are printed in the Irish Field every week), but I thought he was competing at the top shows in the US already. He has also been on quite a few of the Nations cup teams this summer, so has been to a lot of the european 5* shows.

I suppose he wasn't on the GCT circuit though!!

You're right though, at least he has horses for other owners (who are hopefully a bit nicer) as well.

Fiona
 
Yes, the top American shows, but not on the wider stage. However, Darragh must have been making plenty of headway on the FEI Rankings and would surely have had more opportunities soon, as the Irish Federation plays plenty of attention to their riders based outside the country.
 
He did indeed compete in the GCT this season, Monaco anyway and then was nabbed for Nations Cups. But I am not sure what darragh's arrangement with Mr Harrison is either, perhaps he produces horses to a certain level and then Rodrigo gets asked if he want to ride them? I seem to recall being told in Monaco that darragh was based at the owners farm but I might have got that wrong. I sort of suspect that once into team contention, darragh kept the ride until now, possibly longer than he might have otherwise, which would indicate the owner not completely heartless.
 
That sounds very plausible - it something I suppose that he didn't lose the ride earlier on in the season then.

Its just that I had read that Darragh started riding for the owner after he had a falling out with his last rider McLain Ward in 2006, so just putting 2 and 2 together hade me think that he may be a 'difficult' person to work for/ride for.

Fiona
 
This was announced on the Dutch Equestrian News site, www.horses.nl on the 20 August.

He also gets the ride on Will Simpson's little Olympic horse, Carlsson von Dach. This is the horse that jumped off for the States for the Gold medal in the team

Two sharp little horses...... something of a difference from his usual type??
 
Very true, but he had lots of success early in his career with his father's former ride, the lovely Irish-bred Special Envoy, and also his speed horse Bianca d'Amaury On Special Envoy he did one of the best rounds I ever saw in the speed leg of a World Cup Final - smooth as silk. He's a bit tall for Night Train, but then Mark Todd did pretty well with Charisma! However I never like seeing top-class horse/rider partnerships split up.
 
I interviewd Rodgrigo recently and he said he prefers the lighter weight sharper sort so it will indeed be interesting, and Rodrigo has been riding for the owner for a while so perhaps he just prefers him. Hard to argue with three world cups, etc etc etc isnt it no matter how good the others are.
 
I heard this story a few days before the start of the Euros. Carlsson Vom Dach who was bought for Darragh to ride, was transferred to Roderigo's yard. The first rumours were that Night Train may follow, then that Dbl H farms had terminated Darragh's contract with them. He was never based at Dbl H farms, he has his own place in Wellington.
As Fiona said, he got the ride on Night Train after HH and Maclain Ward went their separate ways in 2006.
Edited - because I got it totally wrong.
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you could well be right, i just know darragh still had some dealing with Hunter harrison in june as he was a sponsors invite to monte carlo but that is all i know for sure!
 
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