MADAM,

I WRITE to you on behalf of Ardrahan Agricultural Show with regard to your coverage of the Supreme Hunter Championship at the recent RDS Horse Show. I would like to congratulate Grace Maxwell Murphy and her husband William McMahon, the owners of Gleann Rua Da Vinci on winning the Supreme Championship at the RDS.

Gleann Rua Da Vinci is also the 2022 All Ireland Ridden Hunter Champion, having qualified at Athenry Show and taking the Championship in the final at Ardrahan Show. The finalists in this Championship, organised through the Irish Shows Association and sponsored by Horse Sport Ireland, were drawn from qualifiers held at ISA Shows held throughout the island of Ireland.

Unfortunately, your newspaper did not see fit to mention this in its coverage. Winning an All Ireland Championship is something that every exhibitor hopes for and when they do, they deserve some recognition for it.

It is the ‘shop window’ for many breeders and producers. Shows around the country put a lot of time and effort into organising and running these events but, many of them are completely ignored by your newspaper.

It should not be too much to expect that you would make yourself aware of where and when the finals are being held, get the information and publish a report on them. The exhibitors, the sponsors, and the show organisers deserve it.

Yours etc,

David Devane,

Hon. Secretary

Ardrahan Agricultural Show.

Editor Isabel Hurley replies:

Last week’s bumper 43-page issue of Irish Horse World provided a fitting showcase for the magnificient 2022 Dublin Horse Show, also chiefly showcasing Cavan Sales along with this weekend’s Irish Breeders’ Classic and was warmly received nationwide.

The Irish Field kindly operates a free results service - open to all - to submit their results in our format (see pages 98-101 in this week’s issue). Show and event organisers nationwide regularly submit their results, reports and photographs to our title by our usual Tuesday afternoon 4pm deadline.

Please note that it is entirely the responsibility of all show organisers to submit their own information to us for consideration of publication.

Our office records show that Mr David Devane has not submitted any show results for Ardrahan Show to this paper in recent years.