Joint fifth place finish for Ireland in Dutch Nations Cup as Sweden come out on top

The Irish Show Jumping team, sponsored by The Underwriting Exchange and Devenish, have finished in joint fifth place in today’s (Friday) five-star Division 1 Nations Cup at Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Bertram Allen and Hector van d’Abdijhoeve jumped a double clear round for Ireland in the Dutch Nations Cup in Rotterdam

Ireland were in a four-way tie for the lead at the halfway stage, with four teams on a zero score and four more within a single fence of the leaders. Ireland’s first rider in the opening round, Shane Breen and the Prince Sultan-owned Golden Hawk, lowered a single rail and this would prove the discard score after all three Irish riders who followed jumped clear. A perfect round from Darragh Kenny and Kerry Anne McCahill’s Charly Chaplin S, was followed by another clear from Bertram Allen riding Noel Delahunty’s Hector Van d’Abdijhoeve. Ireland’s anchor rider Cian O’Connor riding Good Luck (owned by Adena Springs & Ronnoco Jump Ltd), showed no sign of pressure when they too jumped clear to leave Ireland on a clean scorecard.

Eight of the 15 fences were raised for the second round and the competition took on a different complexion as fences began to fall for many of the teams. Shane Breen and Golden Hawk lowered two fences second time out, while Darragh Kenny finished with the same score aboard Charly Chaplin S. Irish hopes were raised when Wexford’s Bertram Allen completed an excellent double clear round with Hector van d’Abdijhoeve. Ireland’s anchor rider Cian O’Connor finished with eight faults with Good Luck, to leave Ireland on a 16 fault total in joint fifth place along with Germany and the home team from The Netherlands.
Sweden lifted the winners trophy when finishing on just four faults with Switzerland second on eight faults while Italy and Spain shared third place on 12.

Irish team manager Rodrigo Pessoa said:

“We can take the positives from the performance in that we put ourselves in contention to win at the halfway stage. We are of course disappointed with the second round that we could not deliver. We had some small mistakes that we must correct for the next time. Our guys are all good professionals and they are of course dissapointed that they could not get a better result but they realise that it is not always possible to win all the time.

“Hopefully this will be our discard score in the league. We still have three very important points-scoring rounds to come, with some new horses to try out. Good results in those rounds will put us in a strong position on the league table and our big goal for this year which is the European Championships,” he said.
The result means Ireland now lie in seventh place on the FEI Nations Cup league table with 210 points however most of the teams above Ireland have competed at more points-scoring rounds than Ireland.

Ireland have three more opportunities to gain Nations Cup points, first at at Falsterbo (SWE) on July 14th, followed by Hickstead (GBR) on July 28th, before Ireland’s home Nations Cup at the RDS in Dublin on August 11th where teams will compete for the Aga Khan trophy.

Irish team scores – Rotterdam Nations Cup
Shane Breen/Golden Hawk (4) 8
Darragh Kenny/Charly Chaplin S 0/8
Bertram Allen/Hector van d’Abdijhoeve 0/0
Cian O’Connor/Good Luck 0/(8)
Team total 16 faults