THE Irish European Breeders’ Fund, along with Connolly’s Red Mills, has announced a new date for the Red Mills Irish EBF Auction Hurdle Final, originally scheduled for the cancelled Punchestown Festival.

The final will be run on Wednesday, October 28th at Punchestown and is worth €65,000. It is open to all horses who ran in a qualifying auction hurdle race between August 2019 and March 2020 and have not won Grade 1, 2, 3 or listed bumper or hurdle race. The final was won in 2019 by Zero Ten, trained by Emmet Mullins.

The 2020 and 2021 Red Mills Irish EBF Auction Hurdle Series will commence at Ballinrobe racecourse on Monday next. It will be the first of 14 qualifying races that will run until March 2021, with the final scheduled for next year’s Punchestown Festival. The Irish EBF is supplementing the drop in prizemoney due to Covid-19 related cuts and restoring the value of each race to €20,000.

The €5,000 Weatherbys/ITBA National Hunt Fillies Bonus will remain in place for all races in the series.

The conditions for the qualifying races specify that all horses must be EBF eligible and bought as an unraced three or four-year-old at a recognised National Hunt store sale for €45,000/€30,000 or less, with weight allowances depending on the purchase price.

William Flood, Irish EBF governor, said; “It is great to announce the rescheduling of the final and the resumption of the 2020/2021 series right before the start of the store sales in Ireland. It gives owners, trainers and vendors at the sales a lucrative series of races to target. The Irish EBF is working closely with HRI to ensure all National Hunt funds which were not distributed during the suspension of racing are reallocated to National Hunt EBF races before the end of this year.”

Two of Ireland’s leading trainers welcomed the latest news. Eric McNamara said: “It is a wonderful series and it is great news to have the final back on the schedule and to have the next series starting in Ballinrobe, which is especially welcome in these times. I have two horses already in mind for the final and there will be huge interest from trainers with eligible runners come October.”

Tom Mullins added: “Barnaviddaun was second in two of his starts last season and won the final leg in Downpatrick. He was a €9,500 store and won nearly €20,000 prize-money in the series alone, which is great for his owners. He’s back in training after his summer break and it would be hard not to target the final with the prize-money on offer.”

Gareth Connolly of Red Mills said; “It has been a challenging few months for the industry and we have all had to adapt. We recognise and appreciate the effort being made by all to sustain the racing programme and we are proud to continue to support for both the Foran Equine two-year-old auction series and the hurdle series.”