Wexford’s Bertram Allen and the talented nine-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding Pacino Amiro won the $37,000 Adequan® WEF Challenge Cup Round 2 CSI3* at the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) in the US.
In a starting field of 78 entries, a total of 12 returned for the jump-off.
In the second round, many combinations opted to do nine strides to the final fence on course, but Allen and the gelding owned by Aiden McGregory moved swiftly in eight strides to fly over the final oxer and cross the finish line in 39.72 seconds.
“I thought it was a good, tough class, and it was quite a long track in the jump-off,” Bertram Allen said. “My guy is a little bit inexperienced; you could see that at the start of the jump-off but the more he went, the better he got. I could use his big stride in the big arena, so it worked well for me. He’s only nine so he’s only stepping up to this level but he’s a very genuine, kind horse that’s always trying do the right thing.”
Allen will continue to campaign at WEF for the remainder of the winter circuit with his focus on the talented young gelding to continue to develop in international competition.
“Obviously there’s not much happening in Europe, so we said we’d come over here again,” Allen said. “We were here last year, and we’re just going to take it week by week. Pacino Amiro is probably going to be my best horse, so I’ll just try to develop him up to the CSI5* shows hopefully.”
Michael Duffy also qualified for the jump-off. Unfortunately in round two, Duffy and Zilton SL Z had four faults in a time of 39.98 seconds. The result was good enough for seventh place.
$37,000 Adequan® WEF Challenge Cup Result
1. Pacino Amiro and Bertram Allen 0/0/39.72
2. Anna Jo and Paris Sellon 0/0/40.77
3. Chacna and Enrique Gonzalez 0/0/42.40
7. Zilton SL Z and Michael Duffy 0/4/39.98
