Isabel Hurley
HUGE crowds enveloped Millstreet again this week for the International Horse Show CSI*** which came hot on the heels of the hugely successful FEI European Championships for Young Riders, Juniors and Children on Horses.
The Duggan family, their staff and an army of volunteers have been flat out at the Co Cork venue for the last number of weeks with one major event after another dovetailing into another.
Economically, the recent World Mounted Games, followed by the FEI European Championships, this week’s International Horse Show CSI*** and Millstreet’s upcoming International Horse Trials (August 25th-28th), is worth an estimated at least €15 million in terms of bed-nights, retail and food and drink sales to the Munster region.
Accommodation was booked out as far as Cork city and Limerick for the international events with the FEI Championships worth over €6.5 million to the Munster economy alone, accounting for 29,000 bed-nights.
Thomas Duggan said: “Millstreet will have hosted four very big international events in a seven-week period. It has been terrific. The logistics have been truly enormous but we have risen to the occasion. This week’s International Horse Show has been another bumper week. There’s great interest, we have 1,400 horses and ponies stabled on the grounds. We have live scoring in all eight arenas with the Equip app which was very well received by people who are now able to keep up with everything at once.
“Also new this year is another big screen, new to the pocket area. Please God, we can do it all again successfully for the upcoming International Horse Trials,” he added. The €45,000 eventing schedule at Millstreet include CIC***, CI** and CIC* classes with a CIC Young Horse class for six-year-olds ahead of Le Lion d’Angers. Entries are now closing.
This week’s action has seen over 100 classes on the schedule and almost €200,000 on offer including all the old favourites such as the National Discovery Final; the Millstreet Ruby five-year-old final and the Boomerang final.
International action centred on the eight classes including three Longines ranking classes, the feature of which is tomorrow’s (Sunday) €50,000 Noel C. Duggan Engineering Millstreet Internaitonal Grand Prix, with eight nations on the entry list.
A delighted Noel C. Duggan said yesterday: “This has been another colassal week. It’s very busy, Millstreet is flying.”
FOAL SALE
Last night’s foal sale featured a filly foal by the Cruising clone Cruising Arish who was among 11 foals up for auction at Millstreet. The filly is out of the show jumping mare Rose from Fourcuil (Vancouver). The sale features foals by top European sires Singular La Sill, Vigo d’Arsuilles, Dakar VDL and Glasgow VDL.
One to stand out is a colt foal by Future Trend. His dam Castleconnell Lass is a half-sister to Jane Arnett’s 1.50m partner Pallas Masterclass, while a smart filly by Capri Van Overis Z hails from the dam’s family of our Rio representative MHS Going Global.