The Dutch scored a brilliant double in the team and individual jumping at last week’s Alltech World Equestrian Games. Despite a superb effort, Ireland had to settle for double seventh.

The Irish four of Bertram Allen, Denis Lynch, Darragh Kenny and Cameron Hanley were giants among giants in the greatest Games yet. So much so, we cannot speak with regret of their missing out on medals or Olympic qualification by narrow margins. Rather we have to celebrate their world class performances at the very sharp end of the sport. And we can feel confident that at next year’s Europeans in Aachen, we will seal the qualification slot that we missed this time by less than one fence in seventh.

As to individual placings, Bertram Allen also finished seventh out of the 135 starters with Molly Molone V; Denis Lynch came ninth on All Star 5 and Darragh Kenny 12th with Imothep. Cameron battled on through the team event on a tired Antello Z and did not contest Saturday’s two round semi-final. In the end, Ireland was the only country with three riders in the top 12 . That we got neither medal nor qualification was down more to the gods of show jumping than to any lack of ability.

Ireland had an ecstatic opening speed test on the Tuesday as all four of our riders delivered nicely paced clear rounds. But the star of the day was 19- year-old Bertram Allen who demolished the opposition to win the class. Going 40th of the 153 starters, his powerfully polished round in 77.01 brought him top of the leader board going into Wednesday’s opening team round. At day’s end, Ireland stood seventh on 6.51 penalties behind leaders France (2.08 ); Sweden (3.01); USA (4.72); Germany (4.82); Netherlands (4.83); Canada (6.00).

Team struggle

In the first round of the team championship on Wednesday, we had three four-fault scores from Denis, Darragh and Allen while Cameron came back with a 12. This dropped Robert Splaine’s side back just one place to overnight eighth on 18.51 penalties and 2.51 away from an Olympic slot. Meantime a brilliant Dutch side had taken over the lead on 4.85 followed by USA, Germany, France, Brazil, Canada and Sweden. The fact that Brazil was already qualified as the host nation for Rio meant that Ireland’s target was sixth place for an Olympic slot. Could we close the gap in Thursday’s second round? Yes we could said Kenny and Lynch as both of them took on Frederic Cottier’s big open course like stars. Darragh was around with a single time penalty while Denis was clear. Meantime Bertram’s Molly had just the slightest rub on the last pole of the treble to come back with four. A clear from Cameron would have boosted us into that golden qualifying group but it was not to be as he dropped the boogie second and the third last. We then had only the vain hope that the great Rolf Goran Bengtsson would drop one and allow us to leap into sixth place. But when he went clear, we stayed in seventh out of 35 and an agonising 3.50 penalties away from our qualifying goal. The Netherlands took gold on 12.83.

To the delight of the 22,000 home crowd, France won silver and USA bronze. Germany dropped back to fourth, Brazil fifth and Sweden sixth.

Three Irish In semi-final

On the strength of their performance to date, three of our Irish squad were among the 29 to contest Saturday’s big two-round semi-final. USA’s Beezie Madden and the great Cortes C led ahead of Bengtsson, Soren Pedersen of Denmark and home favourite Patrice Delaveau. Denis Lynch stood 19th; Bertram Allen 20th and Darragh Kenny 24th. But after a gruelling first round, clears by Bertram and Darragh and a four from Denis boosted all three into the top group of 12.

Bengtsson had taken the lead. Beezie was second, Patrice Delaveau third and Germany’s Daniel Deusser fourth with less than a fence dividing them. Cottier again shook them up in the second round and only seven went clear. But demonstrating the power of our attack, both Bertram Allen and Denis Lynch were among the clears while Darragh had just the first part of the mighty treble down. This left them seventh, ninth and 12th overall. At the top end Delaveau; Madden and Sydney Olympic Champion Jeroen Dubbeldam went clear to claim their places in Sunday’s Final along with Bengtsson, who had the luxury of knocking one while still claiming his place in the horse-swapping decider.

The final four

In the final, Sydney Olympic Champion Jeroen Dubbledam made it a double for the Netherlands by being the only one to jump four clears on Zenith (KWPN), Casall Ask (Holst), Cortes ‘C’ (BWP) and Orient Express (SF). French favourite Patrice Delaveau missed a golden jump-off with a single time fault on Casall Ask while Beezie Madden jumped three fours and a clear to take bronze. Rolf-Goran had a difficult final scoring a six and two fours. So it was a double Dutch for Netherlands with three home-bred and one Belgian-bred. Jeroen’s mount in the final was Zenith SFN by Rash R/ Fuego du Prelet. Delaveau’s Orient Express is by Quick Star/Le Tot de Semilly. Beezie’s great Cotes ‘C’ is by the Belgian sire Randel Z and out of a Darco dam. Rolf-Goran’s gelding Casall Ask is Holsteiner by Caretino/Lavall 1. Overall in the top 20 on the scoreboard, breeding was fairly evenly spread between the top Continental stud books:

Selle Francaise 4

Belgian 4

Holsteiner 3

Westfalen 3

KWPN 3

Hannovarian 2

Danish 1

Burghley hat-trick

New Zealand’s Andrew Nicholson made history at Burghley scoring his third consecutive win on Avebury while Britain’s William Fox Pitt won the FEI Classics series helped by the Irish Sport Horse Bay My Hero.