YOU didn’t need to be a rider, owner or producer to feature in the news pages of the Irish Horse World during 2025, some names appearing more often than others.

‘Heydon tipped for top Agriculture job’ was the heading over Judith Faherty’s editorial in the issue of Saturday, January 18th, when Lesley Hunter-Nolan reported on ‘Government commits support to equine sector’. Seven days later we read that the Co Kildare Fine Gael TD had been ‘appointed Minister for Agriculture’.

His name might not have been mentioned in the heading, but Heydon was referred to in the issue of July 26th: ‘Minister launches €500,000 equine traceability scheme’. The accompanying photograph was from March when Professor Patrick Wall had presented his report ‘Reforms to strengthen equine identification, traceability and welfare’.

In the issue of March 22nd, when that report was also covered in The Irish Field, these pages carried Horse Sport Ireland’s response to Wall’s recommendations, while Faherty’s report centred on ‘DAFM to facilitate new horse abattoir’. ‘Traceability work ticks on’ we were informed on August 23rd and, on November 1st, Mark Costello, editor of The Irish Field, wrote in both sections of the newspaper, his Irish Horse World piece coming under the headline ‘Equine database to ‘transform’ sector’.

Others who received special mention for varied reasons were ‘Ryan honoured for his dedication’ (that would be ‘Scarteen’ Chris on Saturday, January 4th); ‘RDS appoints Paul Kelly as new CEO’ (March 8th); ‘Hanly announces retirement from RDS’ (Pat, April 26th); ‘Irish woman appointed FEI director’ (Áine Power, June 21st); ‘Alan Wade honoured to be course designer for LA 2028’ (October 18th); and ‘Joanne Jarden named on Aachen Ground Jury’ (November 22nd).