JANUARY seems to be a month full of new beginnings for the sport horse world with two new team managers announced for eventing and Showjumping Ireland due to announce its new CEO any day now. We hear it will be a well-known and well-respected administrator who has decades of experience with horses and running major events. We will make the announcement official with an online story so stay tuned.

On the eventing side of things, we were recently able to announce that Debbie Byrne is Ireland’s new High Performance Youth Eventing Manager and she will take charge of our pony, junior and young riders. With the FEI Eventing European Championship for Young Riders and Juniors due to be held in Segersjö, Sweden, this summer the role will be a challenging but exciting one for Byrne (pictured below), who certainly has the credentials to make an impact on what is already a stellar group of human and equine athletes.

Credit for this must go to outgoing manager Sue Shortt who, during her tenure, led Irish teams to many victories including silver at the 2021 Young Rider European Eventing Championships, bronze at the 2022 Young Rider European Eventing Championships and silver at the 2023 Young Rider European Eventing Championships. She also led the junior eventing team to a silver medal at the 2024 European Eventing Championships where Tom Nestor claimed individual Silver.

On the senior side of eventing, it was announced that Sam Griffiths will lead the Irish team. Griffiths (pictured below) is a dual Olympian and team medal winner for Australia at the Rio Games as well as a former Badminton Horse Trials winner. Starting out strong, Griffiths has said ‘what I want is an Olympic medal, so let’s all pull in the same direction to get there’.

He replaces outgoing manager Dag Albert who, like Shortt, leaves big shoes to be filled. In 2025, Albert helped Ireland’s senior team win silver at the European Championships in Blenheim Palace and supported our young riders in winning their team silver medal at the Eventing European Championship for Young Riders. Albert’s teams also won the FEI Eventing Nations Cup at Military Boekelo in 2024 and the Nations Cup at Millstreet International Horse trials the same year.

Both outgoing managers have contributed richly to the success of Irish eventing and, as a community, we owe them a debt of gratitude for the countless hours, effort and miles they have put into the riders lucky enough to have been managed by them.

We also wish the new managers every success in their new roles and will await with interest to see if the clash between our event horse owners and Horse Sport Ireland spills over into this year.

Owners have, in recent months, made strenuous representations over what they see as the lack of training, funding and overall support for our top-level eventers.

Riders also entered the fray saying they feared our generous owners would be forced to take horses elsewhere if the situation does not improve.

While a new High Performance levy has been introduced to deal with an apparent shortfall in High Performance funds it remains to be seen where this, and the rest of the Sport Ireland-supplied HP budget will actually be spent. This lack of clarity is something Griffiths and Byrne will undoubtedly need to unravel – and soon.

Our new managers have inherited a deep pool of human and equine talent but they certainly face some challenges when it comes to easing the strained relationship between owners and our governing body. It is certainly a concern of mine that managing this political situation will take energy and time away from a programme already under pressure.

The nuances of this sport where riders, horses, trainers and owners co-exist in such a unique way should not be underestimated. This ecosystem is a delicate one but in the right hands I believe we can forge ahead and put our best hooves forward for LA 2028.