Irish show jumping riders were in the money on both sides of the Atlantic on Sunday with Wexford's Bertram Allen recording one of his best results of the season in Rome while Limerick's Paul O'Shea later won in Lexington, Kentucky.
Allen didn’t manage to land the feature competition in the Italian capital but did pick up €70,000 when finishing second in the €350,000 Rolex Grand Prix, the final class of the weekend’s five-star Italian Nations’ Cup show in the Piazza di Siena.
Riding Noel Delahunty’s 11-year-old stallion Hector van d’Abdijhoeve, Allen was one of 13 riders who made it into the jump-off round along with Mayo’s Michael G. Duffy on the Irish Sport Horse Lapuccino. Duffy would go on to finish 10th when having one fence down against the clock in 50.40secs.
Allen was last to go with Hector van d’Abdijhoeve but, while, in 45.97 he comfortably bettered the time of Australia’s Edwina Tops-Alexander, who recorded the only other double clear with Inca Boy van t Vianahof (51.67), he couldn’t peg back the host nation’s Lorenzo de Luca on Halifax van het Kluizebos (45.37).
At Uggerhalne in Denmark, Sligo's Richard Howley won the 1.45m speed class on Seryna van Keulen's Cruising Star, a 10-year-old Irish Sport Horse mare by Cruisings Micky Finn.
Over in Kentucky, O'Shea's victory came in the $70,000 two-star Grand Prix in Lexington on Tequestrian Farms's 10-year-old gelding Imerald Van't Voorhof while further north at Caledon in Canada the Grand Prix was won for the second week in a row by Co Derry's Daniel Coyle riding Ariel Grange's Farona.
At home, the Army Equitation School’s Captain Geoff Curran claimed the top two places in Sunday’s New Heights Champion Series at Ballinasloe, completing a second clear in 41.63 on Hallowberry Cruz and in 41.84 on Shannondale Rahona.
Competing at the three-star driving event at Valkenswaard in The Netherlands, Tipperary veterinary surgeon Folke Rohrssen finished sixth in the horse pairs with his well-matched Dutch Warmblood geldings Dusty and Eros.
In eventing, the Irish team of Aidan Keogh (Pride Of Tredstep), Declan Cullen (Seavaghan Ash), Austin O’Connor (Colorado Blue) and Michelle Kenny (RLE Aspe) completed on a total of 118.8 penalties to finish third to Germany (99.8) and the USA (109.1) at the Houghton international in England.
Riders from 17 nations will be competing at this week’s Tattersalls international horse trials which get underway on Wednesday with the first of two full days of dressage.
