HARSH weather this week is causing ground woes at competition venues around the country with a number of cancellations, and the Irish Breeders’ Classic has been forced to move their prestigious finals to Monday.

Held at Barnadown Showjumping in Co Wexford, the €80,000 Irish Breeders’ Classic show, the highlight event in the show jumping calendar following the cancellation of all other major shows, began yesterday but harsh rain resulted in the five and six-year-old qualifier being postponed. Jumping resumed on Friday morning in the sand arenas.

With better weather expected over the weekend and into Monday, the committee made the decision to extend the show by one day and jump all the finals and the €20,000 1.50/1.60m Sweet Oak Farm Grand Prix then. Jumping on Sunday will begin at 8.30am on the grass field with the five and six-year-old championship for all studbooks, followed by the seven and eight-year-old final.

The feature Irish Breeders’ Classic Final, for five and six-year-olds, which boosts a prize fund of €34,000 will take place following the Grand Prix in the main grass arena. There will still be jumping at the venue on Sunday with the €4,000 Castlefield Sport Horse-sponsored four-year-old final taking centre stage on the grass at 11am, followed by the 1.40m Grand Prix, sponsored by George Mullins Transport.

With the loss of a huge chunk of the season due to Covid-19, the IBC event is a vital showcase for young horse producers this weekend, with the classes being streamed on irishsport.tv.

Speaking from Barnadown on Friday afternoon, Liz Brennan of the IBC committee, said: “We are jumping and that is all we wanted to do! There was some rain this morning and wind but we welcome the wind to dry the ground. The riders have been brilliant, they were all happy enough with the decision to stop jumping yesterday and push the show out a day. They are all here to jump and they are true professionals.”

The Goresbridge Supreme Sale of show jumping foals takes place this evening (Saturday) at 6pm and will be live streamed on Clipmyhorse.tv and on the Goresbridge website. They will be paraded at 1pm for buyers to see.

Goresbridge’s Martin Donohoe reminded prospective buyers that they can bid online now. “We have 13 truly select special foals, along with two embryos from top performance families forward for Saturday’s auction at Barnadown. We have set up online bidding so prospective buyers and bid and buy online,’’ he said.

Ballindenisk International

Also taking place in the south of the country this weekend is Ballindenisk International Horse Trials in Co Cork. Despite heavy rain, Peter Fell and his team kicked off yesterday (Friday), with four short format classes from one-star to four-star and a CCI2*-L.

Luckily, the Fell family’s recent investment in an all-weather arena has paid off and it will be used for all dressage and show jumping action this weekend. The 140m x 70m all-weather surface was split into two arenas for dressage, with the two-warms up areas also on the sand.

“We didn’t just get rain yesterday, we had a monsoon, we had two inches of rain yesterday,” Peter Fell told The Irish Field as he watched the dressage action on Friday. “The arena drank up every drop of it. We are absolutely delighted to have it.”

Asked about the going on the cross-country track, Fell said: “I would prefer it to be drier but it will be fine. This is a dry farm and it is well able to take the rain in the summer.”

Fell added the support from Horse Sport Ireland and all stakeholders has made going ahead with the event, which was a late addition to the calendar, easier. “We have had great support from HSI and from everyone. It has been trying times, dealing with the Covid-19 issues and trying to run things safely. It was very important we got the sport going.”

Cancellations

Among the victims of the bad weather was the one-day Eventing Ireland fixture at Ballyvannon today, just a week after the Northern Region of Eventing Ireland also had to postpone the event at Loughanmore due to heavy rain fall.

Northern Region event organiser Dora Beacom said the land owners were devastated to cancel the event and, despite the region trying to find an alternative venue, it wasn’t possible at such short notice.

Due to stormy weather on Wednesday, Kernans Equestrian Centre were forced to cancel their SJI show in Crossmaglen, Co Armagh.