Ireland have finished seventh in today's FEI Super League Nations Cup Series show-jumping event in Switzerland.
Ireland were in fifth place at the halfway stage in St Gallen on 12 faults but ended up on 28 faults in seventh, just behind France in sixth on 25.
For the second round in-a-row Italy took the winners prize after they finished on 9 faults.
The home team from Switzerland took runner-up spot on 12, with Germany third on 13 ahead of Belgium in fourth and Sweden in fifth.
"Today was a tough day at the office and this happens in sport. We were a bit unlucky in the first round – we had some good rounds but just couldn’t get that clear," said senior high performance director, Rodrigo Pessoa.
"We tried to fight in the second round but unfortunately we couldn’t improve our position. We will take the positives from this, learn from our mistakes and move on."
He added: "It is good that this was not one of our points-scoring rounds, we still tried to get a good result but that’s sport. We have four very important rounds to look forward to now and we will be taking each one very seriously.
"We can’t take our eye off the ball and must stay focused on our goals which are the European Championships and qualification for the Nations Cup final."
Ireland’s next points-scoring round of the FEI Division 1 Nations Cup series will be at Rotterdam on June 23.
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