For the 10th time since inaugurated back in 2004, Horse Sport Ireland will give a series of awards for major performances that contributed to the standing of the Irish studbook. In conjunction with the Irish Horse Board Co-Operative Society’s AGM at Mallow on Wednesday, 23 November, prizes will be given in some 10 categories.

Once again, the breeders of best performing Irish horses at the World Young Horse Championships at both Lanaken and Le Lion d’Angers will be recognised. Also in for an award will be the breeder of the highest placed Irish eventers in both the Olympics and the FEI rankings. Our highest ranked show jumper will also earn an award for its breeder.

There will again be a pony award and one for the best performing broodmare. In the past, Young Breeders were given recognition and this may happen once again.

As always, an interesting aspect of this happy session will be the giving of an award for a lifetime major contribution to the Irish sport horse breeding industry.

In the past, breeders of the calibre of Ita Brennan, Dr Noel Cawley and John Hughes have been honoured in this category. And among the horses that have earned breeder awards in the past have been Flexible, Going Global and High Kingdom.

The awards will provide a lighter moment following what promises to be a somewhat contentious annual general meeting (AGM).

The sticky moment may come under “any other business” when the subject of inspections may come in for discussion.

The scrapping of inspections for both stallions and mares became a thorny issue following the 2015 AGM at the Kilmore in Cavan. Few of the sparse attendance on that occasion had any idea about what was to be announced.

While objections were muted, the seeds of dissension were also sown and may come to fruit at the Springfort Hall Hotel in Mallow starting at 7pm on the 27.

We shall have to wait and see.

Doha final

Sadly missing out on the second round cut of 18 by just one place, Wexford’s Bertram Allen and Hector van d’Abdijhoeve finished best of the Irish at 19th in the rich Global Champions Tour Final at Doha, Qatar, last weekend.

On a four-fault margin that was less than a second slower than Germany’s Ludger Beerbaum, he dropped out of contention for the big prize of €450,000 on offer in the Longines Grand Prix final.

He also dropped back from fourth to sixth place in the overall season long standings for a gain of €33,000. But he also got a very nice bonus when his Valkenswaard United team held on to win the new Global Champions League Title. His quarter share of the team’s total winnings of over €2m, which he shared with teammates John Whitaker, Emily Moffit of USA and Eduardo Menezes of Brazil, gave him more than €500,000.

However, while we congratulate Bertram on his winnings, we wonder if there were 10 punters in the whole world that cared whether Valkenswaard United or Antwerp Diamonds or Monaco Aces or whoever won this rich but meaningless contest.

A much better use of the over €7m that went into this competition would be better spent if the entrepreneurship of the Global Champions organisation could be combined with the FEI to reinvigorate the World Nations Cup series which is the only show jumping team event that makes sense.

Cassal Ask

The Longines Global Champions Tour Grand Prix was won by Sweden’s Rolf-Goran Bengtsson on the great 16-year-old stallion Cassall Ask by Caretino 2 after a seven-horse third round jump-off.

This earned him €145,000 and, on top of that, he got €294,000 for being overall points winner of the 15-round 2016 GCT series. He had previously been both second and third, but this was his first winning of the championship.

Both Tipperary’s Dennis Lynch on All Star and Cian O’Connor on Good Luck went out in the first round of the Grand Prix. Cian had some compensation when winning Friday’s speed class on Callisto.