The truth is hard to know

When a woman says ‘Tis so

Quick to believe

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So have Women always bee

These lines from Aischylos’ Agagmemnon are as true today as when they were penned back in 450BC. They apply so very aptly to the recent revelations both here in Ireland and abroad whereby the wisdom of women was, to our detriment, many times ignored.

This also applies to horse breeding when, many times against the woman’s best advice, good mares were short-sightedly sold off Irish farms.

Their instinct for finding and keeping the good mare has in recent times been well borne out in the successes achieved by the likes of Patricia Nicholson, Ita Brennan, Marion Hughes and Daphne Tierney. They believe that it all begins with the good mare and as a result they have bred some superb horses that have been a credit to Ireland.

That same wisdom lies behind the decision by people like Alison Corbally and Antonette Doran within Horse Sport Ireland to, against the odds, initiate and then stick with a programme of mare selection.

Recent selections

Over the past couple of months HSI Spring Regional Mare Inspections were held at five venues around the country. A total of 87 mares were viewed by a panel of judges at Tubberbride, Sligo; Creagh, Ballinasloe; Ballybrack, Glenville, County Cork; Portmore, Armagh, plus two final sessions at Tipperary Equestrian. 55 Irish Sport Horse mares were viewed and in what has to be a good result 82% were passed for Select Class. Of 32 Irish Draught mares presented 72% achieved Class 1 while a further three met the criteria for Grade Up.

Danger

Back in 2015 this mare selection process was in danger of being scrapped along with the Stallion Inspections. There was a very sensible and wise fight-back by far-sighted breeders that thankfully was successful. One can only hope that the programme is now secure for the long-term future.

There have been fits and starts in the past on this matter of pin-pointing mares. One can recall the strong effort initiated by Eileen Parkhill and Ronnie MacMahon all the way back in 1971 when they published the Irish Horse Breeders Society’s Brood Mare Stud Book. Their work was somehow subsumed into Bord na gCapall and not progressed. The more recent effort by the RDS in backing Marcus O’Donnell’s work on A profile of Ireland’s Elite Traditional Bred Mares 2017 is another good effort in the right direction of underlining the utter importance of the good mare.