Applications for the post of Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) CEO close on Monday 7 December. The hope is that there will be many candidates and that emerging from their midst will be a person of exceptional talent that can lead the Irish sport horse industry to new heights.

For too long, the industrial aspect of our overall equestrian scene has been seen as subservient to the sport itself.

Both aspects of sport and the industry itself are intertwined in the complicated endeavor of breeding, producing and competing the magnificent animal which is the Irish sport horse.

One cannot truly exist without the other and both will have to be treated equally under the regime of a new CEO.

Marketing

To illustrate the point, I took a look back at the memo and articles from when HSI was constituted as a private company back in 2007. Nine primary functions for the company were listed. The first eight concerned the sport aspect of the initiative and only when I came to the ninth article did I find concentration on industry. That function stated that HSI aimed “to promote the Irish sport horse industry through the marketing division”.

It is my hope that when a new CEO is selected that he or she will give equal attention to both aspects of the company – production and sport; industry and competition. It has to be that the breeder of a foal in the midlands gets equal attention to that of a rider going to jump in an event in North America.

Memory Lane

Usually at this time of year a column like this would be doing reviews of the past 12 months. But since 2020 has really been a non-year in terms of equestrian sport, instead I will go down memory lane with some of Ireland’s iconic competitors over the coming weeks. These are competitors whose exploits I have been privileged to write witness over the past 50 years.

During that time I had the opportunity to travel to 16 countries to watch what they did over the fences in arenas in Aachen, Rome or New York amongst others.

What went on in the heads of those competing though was another matter, and one I wish to uncover.

In the interviews I have done for this upcoming series I tried to get beyond the jumps and concentrate instead on how it all began and feelings that drove them to attempt the impossible of surviving in the tough big world of international show jumping.

I hope you will enjoy my chats with the likes of Con Power, John Ledingham, James Kernan and Eddie Macken.