Young-gun Duffy helps his team to €2.7m after top rookie award win
LESS than 24 hours after he was crowned Jack Dodd Rookie of the Year at the Irish Showjumpers Club Awards, 22-year-old Michael G Duffy scooped a share of the €2.7m winner’s purse as a member of the Madrid in Motion team at the GCL Playoffs in Prague yesterday.
The Ballina rider, who works for fellow Mayoman Carl Hanley in Osnabruck, Germany, competed alongside The Netherlands’ Eric and Maikel van der Vleuten and Marc Houtzager and Spain’s Eduardo Alvarez Aznar during the qualifying season.
However, he didn’t line out in yesterday’s finale, in which just three riders from each of the fivemember teams were in action.
Wexford’s Bertram Allen helped clinch the €1.4m runner-up prize for the Valkenswaard United team when posting the only double-clear of the competition with his brilliant new ride Harley vd Bisschop.
Rounding up a superb weekend, Offaly’s Darragh Kenny and Balou du Reventon helped the thirdplaced Paris Panthers collect just over €900,000.
There was €6.4m on offer in the team event, and over €11m
in total over the entire weekend, during which Australia’s Edwina Tops-Alexander, wife of Global Champions Tour creator Jan Tops, won the Super Grand Prix and just over €300,000.
Duffy attended Saturday night’s Showjumpers Club event, at which the award winners included Co Down’s Conor Swail (International Rider of the Year), Greg Broderick (National and New Heights Champion) and fellow Tipperaryman and World Championship course designer Alan Wade (Special Recognition Award).