SOME 33 stallions are entered for next week’s Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) inspections which will take place at Cavan Equestrian Centre.

The current inspection format, including conformation, movement and athleticism assessment, was first introduced in 2010 when 74 stallions were then inspected for the Irish Sport Horse and Irish Draught studbooks.

Next Tuesday, 7th March, sees 14 Irish Draught and nine of the 16 Sport Horse entries, plus two pony stallions, up for inspection, starting at 9am. Sport horse candidates and this year’s single thoroughbred entry are scheduled for the following day (Wednesday) when sport horses will be assessed jumping under saddle. The Army Equitation School’s Captain Geoff Curran is the test rider for those stallions eligible for the Stage 2 phase.

Gentle Diamond and WRS Sun Rich each have two progeny going forward in the Irish Draught section, while the sires represented in the Sport Horse Section include Contendro, Cornet Obolensky, Douglas and Gem Twist’s clone, Gemini.

Breeders and spectators are welcome at the inspections where HSI staff will also be providing demonstrations for stallion owners of its new ‘Covering online system’.

“From this year, stallion owners can record covering online without any need for the old paper-based system. This initiative should save stallion owners both time and money, in terms of postage,” said HSI Director of Breeding and Programmes, Alison Corbally.

“The inspections and stallion parade will also provide an opportunity to show mare owners how to log on to the “covering cert check” and see in real time has the stallion owner submitted the covering cert to HSI for their mare”.

Follow live updates from the 2017 HSI stallion inspections on The Irish Field’s Twitter feed @TheIrishFieldHW