Written by Colin McClelland

Wexford-born Allen originally cracked the top 20 late last year when a string of superlative performances brought him in at number 17.

Since then the 19 year-old’s progress has been almost unstoppable, with victories and top five placings in the sport’s premier competitions adding valuable points to his total, allowing him to overtake many of the world’s most experienced riders and achieve the number five spot in the rankings for the first time.

Ireland now has nine riders placed in the world top 100, with Allen at number five, Denis Lynch at number 28, Darragh Kenny at number 37, Conor Swail at number 51, Shane Sweetnam in equal 71st, Cameron Hanley at equal 77th, Shane Breen in 88th, Kevin Babington at number 90, and Billy Twomey in 94th place.

Current leader in the Longines World Show Jumping rankings is Britain’s Scott Brash, with Germany’s Daniel Deusser in second place, the USA’s Kent Farrington in third, and Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat in  fourth place.

The rankings are published by the world governing body for the sport, the FEI (Federation Equestre Internationale) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Over 2,000 international riders are monitored each month, and points are awarded for top performances at major shows.

2 September 2014; Nineteen year old Bertram Allen, from Co. Wexford, who won the opening competition of The World Equestrian Games riding Molly Malone V. 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, Caen, France. Picture credit: Ray McManus / SPORTSFILE

IN HIS first ever World Cup Final, Wexford’s 19 year-old Bertram Allen was third overall at Las Vegas tonight (Sunday) in one of the tightest finishing scores ever seen in the famous competition.

Written by Colin McClelland

Starting with one penalty point on his card this evening, Allen and the 11 year-old grey mare Molly Malone had a single fence down to complete the first round on five penalties, equal second with France’s Penelope Leprevost and Vagabond de la Pomme. Swiss Olympic champion Steve Guerdat with Albfuehren’s Paille had started on a zero score and finished with no penalties, to maintain his World Cup lead.

In the second round, featuring the top 20 riders, Allen and Leprevost each had a fence down, both now with nine penalties, which left Guerdat with two fences in hand. In the last jumping round of the Finals, the Swiss rider managed to dislodge two poles, leaving him on a total of eight penalty points, thereby winning the championship by a single point.

Allen and Leprevost tied on nine penalties apiece, but as the Frenchwoman’s time was just half a second faster than Allen’s she claimed second place, with the Irish teenager in third, equalling Eddie Macken’s World Cup finish in the 1979 World Cup Final.

Allen’s remarkable achievement will not only earn him World Ranking points (he was 10th in the world before this weekend) but also garner him valuable Olympic individual qualification points.

Irish show jumping manager Robert Splaine said from Las Vegas after the competition: “This was a remarkable achievement in a world championship for a 19 year-old. Taking this third place was an incredible performance and is great for our sport . Bertram himself is a wonderful ambassador for Ireland.”

Ireland has never won the World Cup, with Jessica Kurten coming second in Kuala Lumpur in 2006 on board Castle Forbes Libertina, and Trevor Coyle also taking the runner-up spot in the final at Gothenburg in Sweden in 1999 with the legendary Irish Sport Horse Cruising. Eddie Macken achieved third place at the inaugural World Cup Final in 1979 with Carrolls of Dundalk, also in Gothenburg.

 Bertram Allen IRL commented- “In the first round I made a mistake but felt she (Molly Malone) jumped quite good, but the second round was a bad round – I got much too close to fence two. But I’m very happy to be here. I’ve had a great week and feel honoured to be sitting up her with these riders at this young age.”

]]> http://equestriannewsni.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=765666 0 http://equestriannewsni.co.uk/?p=706427 http://equestriannewsni.co.uk/?p=706427#comments Wed, 24 Dec 2014 07:07:41 +0000 News Desk http://equestriannewsni.co.uk/?p=706427 THE Irish Independent Young Sport Star of the Year is equestrian sensation Bertram Allen.

He collected his award at a star-sudded lunch on Monday in the Westbury Hotel in Dublin.

His citation read: “The 19-year-old from Wexford lies 19th in the World rankings following a sensational year during which he won a qualifier for the 2015 World Cup in Las Vegas as well as the Grand Prix in Belgium and Dublin Horse Show before joining the Irish team for the World Equestrian Games in Caen, where he finished seventh in the individual event.”

Equestrian fans voted for Bertram through the Irish Independent newspaper and online.

For the second time in her career, Katie Taylor became the Irish Independent Sports Star at the 25th edition of the Awards.

Both the Sport Star and the Young Sport Star award winners were chosen by the public with a record breaking number of people taking part.

Among those in attendance were Liverpool legend Ian Rush, European Ryder Cup winning captain Paul McGinley, European bronze medallist Mark English, Champion Hurdle winning jockey Barry Geraghty, Galway star Joe Canning and a whole host of the country’s biggest sporting stars.

Rachel Wyse was the master of ceremonies with RTE commentators Des Cahill, Jimmy Magee and Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh in attendance.

The CEO of the Irish Sports Council John Treacy and GAA President Liam O’Neill were also among those enjoying the ceremony.

Bertram Allen and Molly Malone V, fastest against the clock but one down to finish 7th in London World Cup Qualifier, 21-12-14 Photo: Helen Revington

THOUGH recording the fastest time in the Olympia World Cup jump-off on Sunday, Ireland’s Bertram Allen fell foul of the vertical bogey fence that had caught out so many in the final round in London, and finished seventh overall.

The 19 year-old Wexford rider this afternoon (Saturday) piloted Billy Twomey’s bay stallion Aminko N to victory in the Christmas Masters competition, adding a further 13,000 euro to his Olympia prize money.

The Masters competition sees riders take on an initial round followed by four jump-offs over a total of six fences, with the height of individual fences being raised in each round, to a maximum of 1m50.

In today’s Masters, Allen came out on top after being the only competitor from a field of seven to leave all the poles up after the fourth jump-off, with Belgium’s Jos Verlooy and Golden Horta runner-up on four faults.

Allen previously won the Speed Stakes at Olympia on Friday night with Wild Thing L.

Team RED MILLS rider Bertram Allen and the seven year old mare Barnike, on their way to winning the gold medal at the FEI World Breeding Jumping Championships for Young Horses 2014 at Lanaken in Belgium. (FEI/Dirk Caremans)

Team RED MILLS show jumping rider Bertram Allen and the seven-year-old mare Barnike, have become the first combination in history to score back-to-back wins in at the FEI World Breeding Jumping Championships for Young Horses 2014 at Lanaken in Belgium.

Written by By Louise Parkes

French rider Patrice Delaveau lined up second with Orient Express HDC, securing pole position for the host country in the team rankings going into tomorrow’s second test, while Belgium’s Gregory Wathelet and Conrad de Hus finished third ahead of America’s Beezie Madden on Cortes C.  Click here for an audio clip with Patrice Delaveau provided courtesy of FEI

The top-10 after today’s opening competition reads like a “who’s who” of the sport, with 2011 FEI European champion Rolf-Goran Bengtsson (SWE) filling fifth with Casall Ask, world number 9 Penelope Leprevost from France in sixth with Flora de Mariposa, and this year’s Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping champions, Daniel Deusser and Cornet D’Amour from Germany, slotting into seventh place.

Lying eighth individually is Canadian phenomenon and 10-time Olympian Ian Millar who, at 67 years of age, is almost 50 years older than today’s winner. The man affectionately and respectfully knows as “Captain Canada” cruised into the top-10 line-up with consummate ease riding the 11-year-old Dixon, a horse with a pedigree connected to his legendary partner Big Ben.

Lying ninth is Sweden’s Peder Fredricson, team silver medallist at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, while The Netherlands’ Jeroen Dubbeldam, individual champion at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, is well placed in 10^th.

First clear round

Irishman Darragh Kenny produced the first clear over Frederic Cottier’s course when second into the arena with Imothep. But the 14-fence track would prove a significant test, with many horses more than impressed by the Norman theme that included a model of Mont St Michel, a herd of sheep grazing in a meadow, cartloads of fresh apples and even a bottle of French wine that adorned the space between the optional elements of the double at fence eight. This proved a pivotal point on the course, with a number of refusals and falls.

In total, 10 horse-and-rider combinations failed to make it around the track, which began with an oxer followed by a line of vertical to oxer to oxer before a bending line to a most unusual wall. Its rock-like face came as something of a surprise to many horses, as did the river-filler below the following oxer which led on to the open 3.80m open water.

The majority of riders selected the right-side faster route over the double of planks at fence eight instead of the poles to the left. Next was a vertical going away from the in-gate, and a stop and fall here for Brazil’s Doda de Miranda when AD Rahmannshof’s Bogeno ducked out to the left, drew gasps of disbelief from the crowd.

A double, vertical to oxer, at 10 was followed on a left-circle by a narrow oxer at 11 and this too took its toll when riders were attempting to make up time towards the end of the track with four seconds added for every fence on the floor. The narrow vertical at 12 then led to the final line of a double, oxer to vertical, and a final oxer.

More than 50 horses took their turn before Delaveau came closest to Allen’s time, and there were only 13 left to run when Wathelet moved into third while Madden clinched her fourth-place finish when second-last into the ring.

Rising star

Allen’s ride was perfection, but there was still a lot of head-shaking at the end of the day because, although his star has been rising for quite some time, his appearance at the top of the individual order at the end of this first world championship contest was generally unexpected. Except by the Irish who have been watching this extraordinarily talented young man making his way through the sport for a number of years now.

Despite his tender years he has a lot of experience under his belt, and his form in recent months includes a brilliant victory in the Longines Grand Prix at Dublin Horse Show just a few weeks ago. And of course he’d given warning of his intent when consistently successful at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games™ 2014 test event earlier in the summer.

Tension mounted in the main arena when Allen and Ballywalter Farms’s grey mare Molly Malone V became the only Irish combination to make it through to the eight horse jump-off, and though they subsequently set the fastest time of the final round, the home crowd was on edge as last man in, the celebrated Canadian rider Ian Millar and his 11 year-old gelding Dixson attempted to snatch the Longines trophy with a swifter finish.

However, not only did Millar and Dixson fail to match Allen’s time, they also had one fence down for four faults, relegating them to sixth overall.

A delighted Bertram Allen, who had shown form earlier this week with his clear round in the Aga Khan Trophy, also with Molly Malone, picked up the winner’s cheque of 66,000 euro.

The runner-up prize of 40,000 euro went to the USA’s Kent Farrington and the 13 year-old gelding Uceko, while France’s Timothée Anciaume with Padock du Plessis*Hn received 25,000 euro for third place.

Ireland’s Thomas Ryan placed tenth in the Grand Prix aboard the grey gelding Caribo, being the fastest of the first round four-faulters.

Forty international riders and horses took part in the competition, which was the last international class of this year’s Discover Ireland Dublin Horse Show.

IRISH riders made their mark on the opening competitions of this weekend’s international show jumping with two consecutive wins at Drachten in the Netherlands, and a third place in the big five-star show in Basel, Switzerland.

His third place in the five-star “Golden Drum of Basel” jump off class tonight (Thursday) was enough for Tipperary’s Denis Lynch to win 10,000 euro on Thomas Straumann’s bay stallion All Star, finishing just three-quarters of a second off the pace of Belgian winner Gregory Wathelet and Conrad, who claimed the first prize of 16,600 euro.

At Drachten in the Netherlands, meanwhile, Mayo’s Cameron Hanley took victory in the two-star jump off competition aboard Dundee vd Dwerse Hagen, while fellow Mayo rider Alex Duffy and Corona posted a first place in the next class, the 1m45 speed competition, with 18 year-old Wexford rider Bertram Allen sealing Irish dominance of the night’s events with a second place on Wild Thing L.