WELLINGTON,, Fla.--Irish Olympian Bertram Allen on Emmylou won the CHF140,000 ($151,000) CSI3* Grand Prix in a 10-horse jump-off on the grass derby field at the Winter Equestrian Festival on Sunday, Feb. 19.
Bertram Allen on Emmylou (Photo by Sportfot)Ana Catalina Cruz Harris of Mexico designed the course for the starting field of 44 horses.
Coming off a win earlier in the season in the Wellington Equestrian Realty CSI4* 1.45m with Emmylou, Allen beat second placed Cathleen Driscoll on Arome by nearly two seconds, and Canada’s Amy Millar was third on Truman.
“The jump-off went to plan,” said Allen. “My horse is naturally very fast so I just tried to keep it as smooth as I could. Obviously, the jump-off was still big and there were quite a few faults in it, so I tried to get the right medium between going fast enough and keeping all the jumps up.”
“She’s a special little horse; she tries so hard, so I get great satisfaction about having the result I did today," he said.
Allen got the ride on Emmylou, the previous mount of Norwegian rider Johan-Sebastian Gulliksen, early last year and set this Grand Prix as a goal this season.
“This was her main goal and now we will evaluate where we go from here," said Allen. “She’s a lovely horse in the barn; she’s very relaxed and easy going, but when you really start jumping she lights up. I think she likes her job.”
IRELAND'S Tom Wachman, just two days after his 18th birthday, rode I'm Here to win the CHF25,000 U25 Grand Prix Sunday morning on the derby field over 70 of the sport’s top up-and-coming young riders, with 11 advancing to the jump-off.
Wachman was coming off a win in the CSI3* 1.45m earlier in the week on Lazzaro Delle Schiave.
“I just started riding I'm Here at the beginning of WEF, but she’s had a great start to the season and won two classes here during WEF 4,” said Wachman.
Wachman has been a competitor in the Under 25 Grand Prix series at WEF for several years.
“It’s a very competitive series because they are all good riders who are well-mounted," said Wachman. "It’s always interesting to me to follow the standings because they change quite a lot throughout the circuit.”
“In the turn from fence two to three I did eight strides on the turn back, and then after the double combination we did 10 strides over to the next big oxer,” he said. “I don’t think anyone else did those numbers in those areas.”
Grace Debney of Great Britain on Jesprit H.S. was second, a little less than two seconds behind Wachman’s time of 34.78 seconds, finishing clean in 36.16 seconds, with Giavanna Rinaldi on Chacco Cherry PS third in 36.66 seconds.
Brian Moggre finished the day on the Derby Field with a win in the $25,000 National Grand Prix on Oh My Star Strytem.
Forty-three competed over Harris’ course, with only four advancing to the jump-off.
Moggre on Oh My Star Strytem was clean in 37.872 seconds, with Jacob Pope on Casper finishing second in a time of 38.604 and Juan Andres Vegas Enriquez of Guatemala on Clever V’T Wulverhof Z finished third in 40.285.
“The course was more difficult than I thought it would be," said Moggre. "It’s not always that you jump the hedge and the ditch and the dugout Liverpool, but the good horses really thrived and there were a lot of unlucky faults. The time allowed was super tight as well so that played a big factor.”
“Of course I wanted to give the horse the best ride that I could and jumping clear is always the objective," said Moggre. "There were only four in the jump-off, so I thought I could take a bit of a chance where the worst I could be was fourth, but I didn’t want to do anything too crazy.”
Moggre said that Oh My Star Strytem is right where he belongs in the national grand prix ranks at the moment,and his plan is to point the young gelding at several more 1.45m classes before moving up.
