JUST five years after building a cross-country course at the venue, Millstreet is bidding to host the 2022 World Championships for eventing at the impressive Co Cork venue.

The Duggan family’s facility is among three formal bids to host the eventing, and the other two are both as part of a multi-discipline World Equestrian Games bid. Italy are looking to once again host the full Games, like they did in 1998, while the other bid for the WEG format is the Saudi Arabian capital city of Riyadh.

Speaking after the announcement, Thomas Duggan said: “The Millstreet team felt that it was time an eventing world championship came home to Ireland, especially after our national team’s fantastic success last year.

“Millstreet might be a relatively new eventing venue, but we feel we have earned international riders and officials respect and we have the space, the facilities and the team to put in a really great championships. We’d love to do it and to show the world some Irish hospitality.”

The Millstreet Green Glens arena is synonymous with show jumping in Ireland and 2014 saw the addition of a Mike Etherington-Smith designed cross-country course at the adjoining Drishane Castle.

That year they hosted the European Eventing Championships for Ponies, before introducing an international horse trials in 2015. In 2017 they had the junior and young rider championship at the venue and earlier this year, Millstreet were awarded a leg of the prestigious Event Rider Masters series.

Asked why they didn’t put in a bid for the show jumping world championships, Duggan said: “We decided we would concentrate on the eventing. The show jumping tends to go with dressage.”

A total of 10 countries have put forward formal bids to host the 2022 championships. They include Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America.

The FEI initiated a bidding process for individual World Championships in all disciplines for 2022 after the FEI General Assembly in Bahrain in November 2018.

The FEI Board decided that multi-discipline bids would be given preference, and that dressage and para dressage should be combined. The World Championships in 2022 in the Olympic and Paralympic disciplines will serve as qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

“The number of formal bids that we’ve received for single and multi-discipline FEI World Championships and full Games is an excellent indication that the interest in the World Championships is as strong if not stronger than ever,” FEI President Ingmar De Vos said.

All bids will be fully evaluated over the summer and allocation will be made at the in-person Board meeting during the FEI General Assembly in Moscow, Russia, in November this year.