Bertram Allen hoping to hit top gear at Geneva show
Specifically he will be aiming to hit top gear in tonight’s Rolex Top 10, featuring some of the world’s best riders, while in Sunday’s grand prix, there is a cool $1.1m on offer in what is the first of the three Majors that comprise show jumping’s greatest prize – the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping — along with Aachen, Germany, and Spruce Meadows, Canada.
Hence, Allen has geared up Molly Malone V.
“She feels great. She is fresh and should be up to doing both competitions, no problem. The Top 10 final on Friday has $400,000 on offer, while Sunday’s grand prix has over a 1m and that’s plenty of reason to do well,” said Allen, before quickly adding “but there will be a lot other fellas thinking along the same lines.”
Allen is firm in his belief that Cian O’Connor and Horse Sport Ireland have a viable case as they prepare to take on the FEI next Wednesday at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. They are bidding to overturn the injustice that occurred at the European Championships that saw a member of the ground crew walk in front of O’Connor and Good Luck as they approached a fence. They knocked the fence, costing Ireland a place in next year’s Olympics.
“Hopefully, all will go to plan next week and we will get a team to Rio,” said Allen. “It would be great and I think definitely we deserve to be there. Cian will put in a strong fight and, hopefully, it will come out in our favour.”
- Up-and-coming American show jumper Katie Dinan confirmed this week she is the new owner of Dougie Douglas, the horse that caused jaws to drop when selling for €1.4m at last month’s Goresbridge Supreme Sale of Show Jumpers in Barnadown, Co Wexford.
The 10-year-old by the Dutch warmblood Ard VDL Douglas out of Neills Girl, by High Roller, was sold by British rider Holly Gillot and Graham Smith.
Dinan, 22, a biology student at Harvard, told The Chronicle of the Horse that Dougie had caught her eye some time ago.
“We had admired him for a long time. We saw him at a few shows in Europe last summer. We’d always seen that he was a very competitive horse and he had great results with Holly Gillott.
“We noticed he was going into an auction last month and that piqued our interest. So we went for it and it was very exciting,” said the daughter of Jamie Dinan, a billionaire founder and chief executive officer of hedge fund York Capital Management.
Dougie Douglas — bred by John O’Brien, Co Limerick — was purchased at the auction by agent Barry O’Connor, who would only say at the time that it was for an American buyer.
It’s worth recalling that Dougie Douglas actually sold at Goresbridge in 2009 to Gillot and Smith for just €5,800.
- Comdt. John Ledingham was this week named 2015 Coach of the Year at the HSI Coaching Awards ceremony in Newbridge, Co Kildare.
Comdt. Ledingham is chef d’equipe to the children on horses, junior and young rider show jumping teams, who took home Individual gold, team silver and team bronze medals, respectively, at the 2015 European Championships.
