MADAM,
I WRITE after witnessing the most appalling spend of Horse Sport Ireland money at Kingdom County Fair (Tralee Show). It beggers belief that Horse Sport Ireland gave €1,000 and put their name to such a shambolic Broodmare Championship.
If the money had been put into one big class with money down to 6th rather than tied to three mickey mouse mare classes it would have been better. A show close to me applied for a HSI grant but were told they were turned down as it was their first year applying for a grant. I dare say they would have run a better class and used the HSI money more wisely than today’s (Sunday’s) show. Any previous HSI classes I have seen came with proper conditions, pre-entry and full breeding listed. Today at Tralee Show, there was entry on the day into all classes which meant no catalogue and no breeding recorded of anything. How can Horse Sport Ireland be happy being associated with such a thing? There were two classes for mares to produce a performance horse - obviously what got them the money, and then the third class was the Lightweight Broodmare.
The mares in all three classes should have been in a separate HSI mare class. That class then should have been pre-entry and full breeding disclosed. At the end of the day, only four mares went into the championship as one mare had won two of the mare classes (maybe the results are published later in the paper as no-one watching the class had any idea). Then a three-year-old filly was also deemed eligible to compete in the championship. In the end, three mares without foals came 1st, 2nd and 3rd and the sole mare with a foal at foot came last.
Yours etc,
Roisin Shanahan
Bandon
Co Cork