It is annual awards time again and in the equestrian world none is more important than those given by Horse Sport Ireland to the breeders of the year. For the 20th time in its history the ceremony will again take place just before Christmas and due to our many successes at World and European level this year Horse Sport Ireland has a richness of candidates to choose from this time around.

It has been said “for want of a shoe the horse was lost”. But there would be no horse at all without the breeders, who through their right choices keep the name of Ireland as the ‘land of the horse’, prominent in the great arenas of the world.

According to HSI breeding director Alison Corbally, there will be 10 awards given this year. Heading the list will be the eventers who have done us proud during 2018. Although a few controversial points narrowly dropped the Irish Stud Book into second place in the World Breeding Federation Event Horse Rankings we still had much to crow about.

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After all our team won silver at the World Equestrian Games in Tryon which is at the very heart of one of our best foreign markets. It will surely be recalled that three of our medal winning team horses where bred in Ireland and that the fourth was also dependant on good Irish bloodlines. On top of that the individual silver winner was bred here as well.

Young horses

Once again this year Irish-breds were truly to the fore at the FEI World Breeding Jumping Championships for Young Horses at Lanaken in Belgium. The unique sweep of the medals in five-year-olds will surely be well and truly recognised.

So too will the breeder of our highest placed in the eventing young horse World Championship at Le Lion d’Angers, France. Nor will our ponies be ignored. Gary Marshall’s selections have had a superb season there are bound to be awards for this section too.

Recalling the past

An award that gets a good deal of attention each year is that given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to Irish breeding. Down the years there have been those who bred and produced mounts that brought honour to Ireland in major competitions and yet have many times been forgotten. This trophy aims at correcting that mistake and it is a good thing.

One can only hope that when the date of this ceremony is announced that as many people as possible mark it in their calendar so that on the night there will be a good number on hand to give due honour to these heroes of Irish Sport Horse breeding.