Isabel Hurley

MILLSTREET Horse Show reached new heights this week staging their biggest ever August show with thousands of riders and visitors alike through the gates of the Green Glens arena.

It’s estimated that the final entries tally will stand at 8,500 by the end of the weekend.

Millstreet’s Thomas Duggan told The Irish Field yesterday: “We had 6,000 entries and that has shot up to 8,000 now and Eimear Buckley and her team in the office are flat out still. Eimear is doing a trojan job. We’d estimate that we are on course for 8,500 entries by the time the show finishes on Sunday evening.

“It’s been a great week so far. We have over 100 classes. The weather is glorious, the place is packed and buzzing. Old faces and new are here and we welcome everyone to Millstreet Horse Show this weekend.

“Cameron Hanley, Billy Twomey, Thomas Ryan, Greg Broderick, and Joe and Ellen Whitaker are here as are quite a number of horse dealers including Vere Phillips. There is a good bit of sales and trade activity at Millstreet. We have never seen it so busy before. There was huge demand, we had to put on 250 extra stables bringing the total to 1,350 stables.

“We had to open car parks that were never opened before. We have 220 lorries here and had demand for an extra 50 hooks-ups on top of those already booked in. Despite the size of this week’s show, it has run like clockwork. Millstreet has grown year on year, it’s great to see this for the whole industry,’’ he said.

The show is being beamed internationally each day via the international clipmyhorse.tv, bringing a global audience of 40 countries to the Cork show with commentary by a panel including Dave Darragh and Chris Ryan of the Traditional Irish Horse Association.

“There has been a great reaction to clipmyhorse.tv. It will be the norm for our shows going forward,’’ said Thomas.

Chairman of Horse Sport Ireland, Pat Wall, described the scenes at Millstreet as “massive’’ to this newspaper and HSI’s new international marketing director, Elaine Hatton, was also at the show.

“Millstreet is thronged. I’m here now and there’s a bumper crowd, a great atmosphere. The industry is on a real high. The standard of the classes, especially the young horse classes, is very good. I commend the Duggans for bringing new audience exposure to their show and Ireland,” said Wall.

Chris Ryan of the TIHA told The Irish Field: “There’s big interest here, the livestreaming is going down very well. In the Reaching New Heights strategic report, there was a real vote of confidence in the industry. With just a bit of help, we can grow this €700m industry to twice that and more in my view, going forward.

“The economy is growing, I remain a little bit cautious about the quality of horses that we have on hand. The TIHA gene pool has shrunk but we have a strategy now, an Irish Horse Board sub-group under an independent chairperson.

“We are going to identify a strategy and put together a management programme for the TIHA,’’ said Ryan.

He added that the TIHA have sent 14 horses to Holland this year and urged producers to make sure that their animals were very well produced and riding well to maximise price.

At Millstreet’s three-star show, meanwhile, Cameron Hanley took the honours in yesterday evening’s main jump-off competition aboard his own gelding Antello Z, stopping the jump-off clock one-and-a-half seconds ahead of his nearest challenger, Derry’s Daniel Coyle and John D. Carr’s chestnut gelding Zuidam, who collected €5,000 for their runner-up place.

Paul Kennedy and Cartown Danger Mouse took fourth place for Ireland in a 47-strong international field.