Horse Sport Ireland chair Prof Pat Wall, welcomed the allocation of an extra €600,000 to the sport horse sector for marketing and promotional activities in last week’s budget.

“This is an important first step. Over the last few months, the Minister [for Agriculture Simon Coveney] has fully engaged with the sport horse sector and those involved will be pleased to see this allocation for marketing. When this is added to the EU funds for a network of equine discussion groups, which the Minister has committed to, we are moving in the right direction,” he said.

“The sport horse sector is a genuine 32-county activity and I hope [Northern Ireland agriculture minister] Michelle O’Neill will follow Minister Coveney’s lead,” he added.

As expected, the promised budgetary funding of €600,000 will be very much tied to two objectives close to Minister Coveney’s heart: horse welfare and increased value of products from the sector. On a national level, funding will be aimed at improving the quality of our horses and key to this will the identification of our best performing mares. So it appears certain that when the long-awaited 10-year strategy for the sport horse sector is published soon, there will be money on offer for the running of dedicated mare classes.

The marketing programme looks set to be formulated along the lines of that already in operation for the thoroughbred world. But this will no doubt come with a price tag that will look for some matching funding from the sport horse sector – perhaps in the form of a levy on entries and sales.

There will also be a huge push on horse welfare. We do not want another blast of negative publicity on this front, so whatever money is on offer will again be tied to strict identification of animals and premises.

Beyond all of this comes the area of cooperative education through the establishment of breeder groups around the country. Prof Wall has already expressed his hope that funding of such groups through EU approval of the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Plan will be forthcoming. Such self-help initiatives will be looked upon as a must for the implementation of funding.

Any forthcoming grants will be linked to quality, identification and informed participation in a strategy aimed at giving increased return to breeders and producers of Irish sport horses.