Caitriona Murphy

IRELAND’s pony eventing team manager Polly Holohan has resigned from the role just under a year after she was appointed. The former four-star event rider is expected to concentrate on her own horses and her competitive career.

Holohan represented Ireland at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona with her horse Rusticus and won a team silver medal at the European Championships in Punchestown in 1991. Until she was appointed as the Team Ireland pony eventing manager in January 2014 for a one-year initial contract, she had been training riders and producing young horses at her base in Co Tipperary.

Although Ireland enjoyed the advantage of fielding 12 riders as the host nation at the 2014 European Championships in Millstreet, this did not guarantee success and this was the first year since 2008 when the pony eventing riders did not secure a European medal. The largely inexperienced Irish team finished fifth of eight nations competing, but the exposure of all 12 riders to the atmosphere of a championship should stand them in good stead.

Horse Sport Ireland is now seeking a new pony eventing manager to take up the reins in 2015. With seven medals won by Irish under-age squads every year for the past three years, the pressure on the next manager to produce tangible results will be intense. The 2015 European Championships for pony riders will take place in Malmo, Sweden, on the same week as the Dublin Horse Show.