BERTRAM Allen made a winning start to his stint in Wellington, Florida, when landing last Friday’s WEF Challenge Cup, Grand Prix qualifier, with the Irish Sport Horse gelding Pacino Amiro.
From a startlist of 78 entries, Allen and the nine-year-old gelding were among 12 to return for the jump-off, with five clears choosing to withdraw, and proved better than the rest when breaking the beam in 39.72 seconds to earn $12,210. By Pacino, the gelding was was bred by Simon Scott out of the NC Amiro mare Carnone Dancing Queen.
USA’s Paris Sellon slotted into second place with Anna Jo (0/0 40.77), ahead of Mexico’s Enrique Gonzalez and Chacna in third (0/0 42.40). Galway’s Michael Duffy was the only other Irish rider in the jump-off and placed seventh with Zilton SL Z when faulting once against the clock.
Allen was thrilled with victory. “I thought it was a good, tough class, and it was quite a long track in the jump-off,” he said. “My guy is a little bit inexperienced; you could see that at the start of the jump-off but the more he went, the better he got.
“I could use his big stride in the big arena, so it worked well for me. He’s only nine so he’s only stepping up to this level but he’s a very genuine, kind horse that’s always trying do the right thing.”
The Wexford native was impressed with the grass arena, which he also won on last season. “The field is fantastic. I love it. The ground and everything is really, really good and the horses love it. It’s beautiful. In two weeks, we’re back out here, so I’m going to skip next week just to make sure I can jump as much as I can on the grass. I think it’s brilliant.”
Allen will continue to campaign at WEF for the remainder of the winter circuit with his focus on the talented young gelding to continue to develop in international competition.
“Obviously there’s not much happening in Europe, so we said we’d come over here again,” he said. “We were here last year, and we’re just going to take it week by week. Pacino Amiro is probably going to be my best horse, so I’ll just try to develop him up to the CSI5* shows hopefully,” he added.
Sweetnam second
Irish riders filled four of the top five places in Saturday’s 1.50m Table A, with Cork’s Shane Sweetnam claiming second and third place behind American winner McLain Ward with Contagious.
Ward clocked the winning time of 36.84 secs, just ahead of Sweetnam and the nine-year-old gelding Ideal in 37.27. The Swedish-bred gelding, who is owned by Sweet Oak Farm and Seabrook LLC was produced by Galway’s David O’Brien and made his FEI debut under Sweetnam last week.
He guided the more experienced Indra van de Oude Heihoef to third place in 37.85 secs, just ahead of Allen with the 10-year-old mare Giolita in fourth (0/0 37.88) and Darragh Kenny in fifth with Vinci de Beaufour in fifth (0/0 37.92).
Cian O’Connor won Friday’s national 1.40m with his nine-year-old grey gelding Australia when fastest of 27 clear rounds in the big class of 78 starters. The combination broke the beam in 57.28 secs, ahead of Spain’s Gonzalo Busca Roca (Cartoon Tame) in second and USA’s Chloe Reid (Crossover 4) in third. Allen slotted into fourth place with Theo Duc T&L Z.
Sligo’s Darragh Kerins finished third in Thursday’s national 1.45m class with the 10-year-old gelding Skara Glen’s Para Bellum. Victory went to USA’s Catherine Tyree with Bokai.
Wachman brothers placed
Tipperary show jumping brothers Max (17) and Tom (15) Wachman are competing at the Florida venue, trained by Cian O’Connor, and they both placed in last Saturday’s 1.45m High Junior Jumper Classic.
Max guided Coolmore Showjumping’s 12-year-old gelding Lazzaro delle Schiave to one of just four clears in the first round and finished with four faults against the clock to place fourth. Tom rode Atlantic du Seigneur to a sixth-place finish with four faults in the first round.
Max had the same placing in Sunday’s 1.35m Medium Junior Jumper Classic when riding Brooklyn du Hus to one of seven clear rounds in the international arena.