Wellington, Fla.—March 28

It’s pretty hard to win a class during the final five-star week at the Winter Equestrian Festival as all the biggest names in the sport have been preparing their mounts to excel this week. But Conor Swail managed it—twice.

Yesterday he and Gamble topped the $32,000 Dodd Technologies CSI5* class, and he followed that up with a big win in today’s $117,000 Adequan Challenge Cup 12 with Casturano.

Not that it was easy. Fifteen of the 57 entries found their way around Guilherme Jorge’s first round track fault-free and 14 jumped off. (Shane Sweetnam opted to save James Kann Cruz for Saturday night’s $500,000 Rolex Grand Prix.) Swail managed to stop the short-course timers first by opting for a more conservative track between the first two fences so that he could nail a rollback turn to the third. He and Casturano beat out Germany’s Christian Kukuk and Mumbai by 0.1 seconds. Andrew Bourns and Sea Topblue took third.

Swail was impressed with the field in the five-star competition at WEF.

“You always have all the top riders here—McLain [Ward], Ben [Maher], Laura [Kraut], Kent [Farrington], the two Coyle boys [Daniel and Jordan],” he said. “There’s so many good riders; it’s nice to see a couple of the European boys over as well. It’s nice for them to come over and see it’s not so easy to win over here either. You’ve got to be up for it.”

While Swail owns a house in Wellington, he spent most of his season in Thermal, California, at the Desert Circuit, where he enjoyed a strong season. He said he considers Casturano, an 11-year-old Holsteiner gelding (Castelan 3—Bantura, Canturo) owned by Mannon Farm, his top mount currently.

“We just did a few three-stars and 1.50-meter [classes], then plan was always to come here and give him a tougher test, and it worked out great,” Swail said. “The horse is phenomenal. He  just needs a few more big classes, another six or seven five-stars. I’m going to have a lot of fun with him. He’s so much quality; honestly, he is incredible.”

Still, the Irish rider isn’t looking to aim the horse he paired up with last year toward this summer’s Paris Olympic Games. He’s not even showing him—or any other horse—in this Saturday’s $500,000 Rolex Grand Prix, as he’s never schooled open water on the horse.

“I am on the short list [for the Olympics], but realistically and honestly, this is the best horse,” he said. “Count Me In is bit too old, and I wouldn’t want to put him through that again. This is a championship horse but not this year. It’s just about building him up, and hopefully he can stay healthy for me. I think he will be on many teams, but not the Olympics this year.

“It’s not frustrating,” he continued. “It’d be frustrating if I thought I had a horse good enough and I wasn’t selected—that would be frustrating. I don’t have a horse available, so it’s very simply answered. There’s plenty of other good classes I can aim for all year and focus on that. Hopefully I can do a few team events this year. That’s one thing he hasn’t been used for yet, and give me a few more months on him and I think he’ll be ready for that.”

He’s aiming “Stan” at the Kentucky Invitational Grand Prix CSI4*, held in conjunction with the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event CCI5*-L, then he’s hoping to take him to Old Salem (New York) for another four-star event.

“He has that confident way about him,” he said. “He’s a good guy, very pleasant, nice to work with; he’s smart when you teach him things. He’s a wonderful horse to work with, and I’m really excited about where it’s going to lead me.”

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