HORSE Sport Ireland unveiled ambitious plans this week to move from its Naas-based offices and establish a new National Training Centre at Greenogue Equestrian in Rathcoole, Co Dublin.

A long-term renewable lease of 35 years was signed on Monday between HSI and the owners of Greenogue Equestrian, Con and Lucy McCarthy, which lies just off the N7. Horse Sport Ireland will be using Greenogue as its base for its own training clinics from the end of March 2021 while a new modern office block will be constructed on site for the administrative staff who will move from Millennium Park by January 2022.

Staff were informed of the plans on Tuesday by Acting CEO of Horse Sport Ireland, Joe Reynolds who spoke of the importance of having their own equestrian campus.

“It is important for Horse Sport Ireland to have this home for lots of reasons – for the development of equestrian sport, our junior teams and squads. Having a National Training Centre should serve to bring the Irish Sport Horse industry closer together as a centralised place where the equestrian and breeding community can interact more.

“The facilities at Greenogue are very good. We will extend the main sand outdoor to make it an international-size arena. We will be using that arena from the end of March onwards. The office plans include quite a substantial coffee dock area in the main building with break out areas in flexi rooms where groups, small or large, can meet together. The office staff will move from Naas to the new site by January 2022,” Joe Reynolds told The Irish Field.

With 55 stables on site and a compact indoor arena, the focus for Horse Sport Ireland will be using their new facilities for their own team training while plans are also in hand to use it for the benefit of breeders through a collaborative joint venture with an academic institution to be confirmed shortly.

“It is all about improving the industry – performance and breeding – it can all be improved with this. It is pretty good as it is but if we can develop the industry more, improve the average price of foals through helping people produce what the market wants, that will help improve the life of farmers, breeders and their families. If you are producing the right article, it will sell at the right price. That money trickles down through the whole industry.

“There is a lot we can do in the Irish Sport industry and what we can do at Greenogue, we can do most of it within our current budgets. If we wanted to expand the indoor into a big indoor for training from its current size, we would need to look capital funds for it or a mix of industry, benefactors and state funding, and that would be doable in time,” he added.

No threat

Reynolds stressed: “I don’t want what we are doing at Greenogue to appear as a threat to commerical equestrian centres – we are not running jumping leagues on a Saturday morning or anything like that – we are not competing with the existing venues – we will be using our new premises for our own programmes. It makes business sense for us. We are spending about €120,000 in rent where we are each year. We should be near our product, it is illogical to be spending that money on office space alone and having to go all around the country looking for available venues for training.

“This has been in the works for an extended period of time – about four years – but has culminated since September. We looked at numerous options over the years but this is the only viable one for us. It’s within our current budget without taking money from any of our programmes. This really works for us. We can do all of it within our own capacities without recourse to the State. It is a great facility.

“It gives us the ability to do a lot more work in-house and more intensive work within the specific disciplines. Equestrian sporting standards are rising all the time, we have to stay ahead of that curve. This is a sport that requires more than an ability to ride at a high level. In HSI’s Strategic Plan, we outlined that we want to have the best horses and the best riders in the world. The objective for us is to raise the bar and this facility will help us move to the next level,’’ outlined Reynolds, paying tribute to Acting Chair of HSI Mary Lambkin Coyle and the board.

Level 5 activity

As the country moves back into Level 5 tonight (Thursday), sport horse activity can continue, with restrictions, alongside horse racing and greyhound racing. Cavan Equestrian, however, has decided to cancel its two-day Christmas/New Year show on December 29th and 30th, citing the new travel restrictions in place nationwide.