ON Thursday, the RDS announced the dates and venues of the qualifiers for four of the performance championships at this year’s Dublin Horse Show – young and small event horses, Irish Draughts and Connemaras.

Restricted to Irish-breds, the qualifiers for the four and five-year-old young event horse classes and the small (150cms to 160cms) event horse class will take place on the four Wednesdays in June at Scarteen, Rincoola, Forth Mountain and the new venue of the Stevenson family’s Tullylish near Gilford in Co Armagh.

As has become the norm, the qualifiers for the Irish Draught and Connemara performance championships will be staged at the same venues on the following Saturdays. Therefore, these will start at Scarteen on June 10th and conclude at Tullylish on July 1st.

There are two classes for Irish Draughts, four and five-year-olds and six-year-olds and upwards, with the Connemaras being divided into five to seven-year-olds and eight to 15-year-olds for the August show.

While the competition schedule for the show will not be available until May, all details regarding eligibility, rules and competition format can be found under equestrian information on the Dublin Horse Show website.