Millstreet International Horse Trials has be a world class venue. In recent years the Co Cork location has hosted the Pony European Championships, Junior and Young Rider Eventing European Championships and a leg of the FEI Eventing Nations Cup.

This season it will be the first Irish venue to host of a leg of the Event Rider Masters.

The Event Rider Masters is a series run across Europe, with record prize money on offer.

The aim of the series is to showcase eventing to a global audience.

Series events

It consists of six events, kicking off at Chatsworth in England in May. The series then moves to Wiesbaden, Germany for the second leg, the third leg will be in Arville, Belgium, the fourth leg in Haras de Jardy, France and the fifth leg will be in Millstreet, Ireland.

The final of the 2019 series will be at the beginning of October in Lignieres, France.

Each leg of the series runs in conjunction with other international classes taking place at each venue.

Under the new eventing classification the Event Rider Masters series is a CCI-S4* competition, this was previously known as CIC3*. The series has changed the format of eventing and made the sport a lot more viewer friendly. All three phases of the competition will also be streamed live.

The competition begins with the dressage phase. Show jumping is the second phase and riders jump in reverse order of merit.

New feature

For most events the final cross country phase is run in numerical order, however, to make the competition more exciting the top 20 riders after the dressage and show jumping go cross country in reverse order in the Event Rider Masters.

Each leg is run over two days, with the Irish leg of the series will being held on 24 and 25 August. This will give spectators a chance to see some of the world’s best riders in action.

More information will be available closer to the time via the Event Rider Masters website eventridermasters.tv, or via the Millstreet website, millstreet.horse.