Ireland’s Darragh Kenny opened international competition during the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) with a win in the $32,000 Adequan® CSI3* WEF Challenge Cup Round 1 on Thursday at Wellington International. Kenny and Irwin, an 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood stallion (Kannan x Paladin des IFS) owned by HKC Collection LLC, topped a field of 72 horses for the win.

Kenny had his eye on Irwin since the mount was seven before becoming part of the Irish Olympian’s string last year. The former ride of Danish show jumper Emil Hallundbaek, Irwin is on a steady climb to the top.

“To be honest, the horse just keeps getting better and better,” he said. “When I bought him he’d never really jumped more than 1.50m. He was still very green but he feels like an incredible horse.”

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