“First of all, we need to protect the traditional Irish breeds, in terms of maintaining the purity of those breeds like Irish Draught, Irish cobs, Connemara ponies,” he said. “It’s important that within the national studbook we have very clear categories whereby people are rewarded for maintaining a particular sub-group which is then used as a base to breed from.

“It’s important to maintain our traditional breeds by means of a base from which to breed from and we certainly shouldn’t be diluting that purity, but there should be a separate category in the studbook that allows us to produce the best show jumpers and eventers in the world,” he added.