I WATCHED online the final of the children on horses competition from Millstreet’s European Championships.

The individual gold medal-winning horse, Sir Douglas 10, is an Irish Sport Horse and was ridden to victory for Germany by Viktoria Schmidt.

Sir Douglas 10 was bred by Ronan Byrne, from Carlow and to breed a gold medal horse is a fabulous achievement for anyone so, make no mistake, I applaud Ronan’s success.

However the puzzle of Sir Douglas 10’s pedigree proves for me, as a life-long pedigree breeder and customer of various breeds and species, exactly why we need clarity between what I call the pan-European show jumper type and the truly Irish horse as two ‘strands’ within the Irish Sport Horse studbook.

Your readers will have seen what Denny Emerson from the USA (a masterclass demonstrator and judge at this year’s RDS) wrote in The Irish Field last week about the three very different types of horse he found called Irish in Ireland and at the show.

Are we simply stone-mad, utterly confused, or something else entirely to continue to classify as a single Irish Sport Horse breed a pan-European show jumper like Sir Douglas 10, a traditional (TIH) Irish Sport Horse such as Ardcolum Duke and even the truly Irish, but not technically classic traditional, Cisero?

All three are all seriously admirable show jumping winners, doing the business for their connections, but they are dramatically different in their make-up.

As an aside, it was marvellous to see the champion hunter Fort Knocks, recognised for his breed as a ‘pure’ Irish Draught.

Sir Douglas 10 has acquired Irish citizenship but not one drop of genetically Irish blood in his genealogy.

His father was an immigrant “Netherlander” who himself had no Dutch blood, since his own father was Belgian and his mother was German. Her parents actually came from two sides of a politically-divided Germany.

This is all to be found on the Horse Sport Ireland database CapallOIR (http://breeding.horsesportireland.ie/).

The dam of Sir Douglas 10 also has Irish citizenship, although her parents originated as citizens of France. Her father was another migrant to and from Holland. His parentage was actually from just one part of Germany.

Her mother’s father was from a different partition of Germany to her father, who settled in France. He took up with an unknown French girl, by whom he produced Douglas 10’s grandmother.

Perhaps it is not surprising if this all sounds a bit “double-dutch”?

Sport horse breeding (or more specifically breeding the pan European show jumper type), is dominated by a country which schizophrenically cannot decide whether it is Holland or The Netherlands and whose citizens are called Dutch.

BUSINESS INTERESTS

It is politically organised by a cabal of powerful business interests who have given themselves a “world” title to promote their interests.

In truth, they are only marginally more global beyond Europe than say the World Series is parochial to American baseball!

At least the Royal Dutch Horse Studbook recognises that it contains several distinct types and breeds. So it has structured a separate Breeding Council of dedicated specialists for each strand.

This is the most important Dutch example, if any, that we need to copy in Ireland.

In this regard, it is past due to restructure the Irish Horse Board, which continues to be impossibly shaped for the purpose of serving every one of its diverse breeder members.

As we celebrate this year’s centenary of the rebellion, the undoubted value to the world of the Irish diaspora, both human and equine, is due (whether by accident of geography or design) both to our Hibernian culture and our DNA.

The paradox is that its very success is thanks to the failure of efforts of generations of politicians in trying their best to prevent it!

I will be fascinated to see how loudly we trumpet this Millstreet success as a triumph for the ‘Irish’ horse. Surely the KWPN politically, and Germany genetically, are more entitled to claim him as being of their breeds?

I guess ‘we’ will fall over ourselves to claim any WBFSH points... if there are any. If there aren’t, then I guess this might be swept under the carpet or into the ‘too difficult’ bin.

How politically fortunate if we allow the spin-doctors to use Rio 2016 to distract us from a major divisive and frequently dishonest issue.

How much of the continuing disaster for the future of the ‘True’ Irish horse will it be, if we do not clean up our act, before it becomes for Ireland as relatively big an issue as ‘sport doping’ (That now deeply regrettable official national policy which seemed like a good idea at the time) is presently for Russia?

How marvellous of Millstreet to throw up such a curve-ball so soon after a brilliant RDS Dublin Horse Show for ‘proper’ Irish Horses, for which I am still enjoying the bountiful coverage in the pages of The Irish Field.