Bittersweet victory for Bourns

GALWAY’s Andrew Bourns made sure it was another Irish whitewash during week seven of the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, last weekend, winning the $50,000 two-star Grand Prix, just 12 hours after Bertram Allen took the five-star victory.

The victory was extra special as his mother, Deirdre, was watching on the livestream from Ireland. Sadly she passed away the following day.

From a start list of 44 competitors, just eight combinations left all the fences up for a ticket to the jump-off. In the second round, Bourns and his own Darquito proved to be the best over the shortened course, finishing double clear in a time of 38.58 seconds to earn $16,500.

Bourns knows his 10-year-old Hanoverian gelding by D’inzeo 6 quite well, having bought him with his parents Richard and his late mum Deirdre Bourns in Germany as a seven-year-old.

“My plan was to win it and I knew with the girls coming behind me, I had to really move it,” said Bourns of his winning round. “Chris Kappler helps me a lot. He’s my full-time trainer and Michael Blake, the Irish chef d’equipe, helped me with the jump-off as well. It takes a whole team to come together. I was so happy with my horse today.”

Britain’s Emily Moffitt and USA’s Abigail McArdle finished in second and third places respectively. Moffitt and Tipsy Du Terral were just one 10th of a second off the lead, finishing in 38.68 seconds. Not far behind that, McArdle and Victorio 5 also produced a double-clear effort in 38.75.

The victory marks the first at the international level and the first Grand Prix win for Darquito. It’s been a steady climb from the beginning of their partnership with a full team effort from the Bourns Sport Horses team.

“My dad produced him in Europe with his riders first for a year,” said Bourns. “In 2019, I went over to Europe and jumped a few smaller classes, and last year he had a few nice results up to CSI3* level and had some placings in ranking classes. He’s a fabulous horse and probably a barn favourite actually. It’s more for his personality than anything else. He was just right from the beginning, one of those horses we couldn’t leave behind. From the very first moment, it was love at first sight with this horse.”