Niall Talbot claims the CSI3* Oliva Nova Beach & Golf Resort Grand Prix
Ireland’s Niall Talbot and the 10-year-old stallion Charming Dream Z (Carrera VDL x Cagliostro 161) won Sunday’s CSI3* 1.50m Oliva Nova Beach & Golf Resort Grand Prix at Centro Ecuestre Oliva Nova in Spain, where the penultimate week of the 2025-edition of Autumn MET concluded on Sunday.
For Talbot, this win was an emotional one. “I lost a very good friend, John Mulvey, this week,” he shared. “He was a very popular guy and a great horseman in Ireland and he passed away after a long illness on Tuesday. His funeral was on Friday, and it was special for me to get a win like this now. Today was for him, I think we maybe had a little help from above.”
With a time of 39.40 seconds in a jump-off of ten, Talbot bested a field of 59 horse-and-rider combinations, taking the win ahead of Belgium’s Bart Jay Junior Vandecasteele and Vamos de La Pomme d’Or Z (Vigo d’Arsouilles x Ogano Sitte), who had to settle for the runner-up spot when the clock stopped on 40.10.
Tomma Thiesen (GER) and Macklemore Von Der Soehr (Manchester van’T Paradijs x Quiwi Dream) took third with a time of 40.26, followed by Mariano Martinez Bastida (ESP) on Poseidon v/d Molendreef (Comme Il Faut 5 x Casco 4) in fourth in 40.92, while a time of 41.35 saw the French legend Michel Robert aboard Calasto Z (Calvaro F.C. x Stakkato) finish fifth.
“He’s a horse we think a lot of,” Niall Talbot said about Charming Dream Z. “He’s been jumping at this level this year, and all summer he’s been just kind of knocking on the door for a win. I’m delighted that we got one now this week at three-star Grand Prix level.”
Explaining his winning strategy over the course set by France’s Gregory Bodo, Talbot detailed: “I walked the jump-off course beforehand because there were some new jumps for it, and I just made my plan. The first line was from an oxer to a vertical with nine strides and because my horse has a lot of stride I knew I could get up there on eight. I think that’s probably where he won the class, in the first line where we left the stride out. Then for the rest, I just stuck to my plan and kept everything as tight as I could – and, thankfully, everything paid off.”
“I love it here,” Talbot, a familiar face at Centro Ecuestre Oliva Nova, said about the venue. “I’ve been coming here since the beginning of the MET. We come every spring and every autumn. I think it’s a great place to produce horses, and to bring students because they have competitions for every level. It’s a great place to work out of with all the rings quite close to each other, and the courses and surfaces are good. We really like coming here.”
Autumn MET III 2025 continues next week, running until December 14th.