Last Thursday, the board of Irish Shows Association (ISA) began its post-COVID-19 renewal when voting to run a series of all-Ireland young horse championships during 2021.

It is 40 years since I witnessed the conception of the very first all-Ireland when Kitty Donohue of Goresbridge agreed to be its inaugural sponsor. Judged by Britain’s international star Ted Edgar, a yearling colt owned by Fred Burke of Clonlara, Co Clare was the winner.

That single event has since multiplied many times, so that by the 2019 season there were 25 all-Ireland horse championships. The COVID-19 pandemic stopped all of that for 2020. But now eight of them backed by Horse Sport Ireland’s (HSI) breeding department will be run behind closed doors for 2021.

Eligibility

When the first championship was run back in 1982 there was one simple rule of eligibility – “entries are confined to one-, two- and three-year-olds registered in the Irish horse register”. But in more recent times that rule has been expanded. It now stipulates that entries must not only be registered, but must also be by a stallion that is classified as approved or preliminary approved in the Irish Sport Horse Stud Book, or is Class 1 in the Irish Draught Stud Book.

Stallions from the Irish Warmblood Stud Book are also included as are Weatherbys Thoroughbred stallions.

Dilemma

Irish sport horse breeding practices have dramatically changed since that first 1982 event. We now have AI, the use of continental bloodlines and many other developments that have given breeders a much wider options as to the choice of sire.

This has left the board of ISA with a thorny dilemma that at this point has not been resolved. There are two diametrically opposed options presented to them when they write the rules for the all-Ireland horse championships. First of all, they can throw them wide open and simply go with the original rule that all entries must simply be registered.

Secondly, they can attempt to protect the integrity and soundness of the Irish horse by restricting entry to those animals that have been sired by a stallion that has gone through a rigorous selection and approval test.

There is no easy answer to this dilemma; but for the sake of our young horse classes and championships one has to be found. This demands some innovative thinking which will make our showing classes much more relevant going forward.

2021 all-Ireland horse championships

• Three-year-old horse.

• Two-year-old filly.

• Filly foal.

• Yearling filly.

• Traditional colt and filly foal classes.

• Yearling filly Irish Draught.

• Irish Draught Leitrim Breeders’ mare and foal class.

• Two-year-old Irish Draught filly.

• Irish Draught colt and filly foal.