NOW in its 12th year, the Irish Breeders’ Classic is a firm favourite of the Irish show jumping calendar, hosting the world’s richest young horse class with a prize fund overall in excess of €100,000.

The prestigious event will take place at Barnadown Showjumping, Gorey, Co Wexford, from Thursday August 31st to September 3rd 2023

The full competition schedule includes a leg of the 1.40m Gain/Alltech National Grand Prix which will take place on Saturday and the North Star 1.45m Grand Prix will take place on Friday.

The five/six-year-old Non Irish final will take place on Saturday followed by the Goresbridge/IBC Select Foal Sale. The Irish Breeders’ Classic Finals for the five/six-year-olds, the seven/eight-yearolds and the four-year-olds will take place on Sunday. The organising committee are also delighted to announce they are in a position to run a 1.55/1.60m Grand Prix on Sunday, sponsored by PlusVital with a prize fund of €10,000. Full details are available on www.irishbreedersclassic.com.

Visionary

The Irish Breeders’ Classic was set up in 2012 and was the brain child of Ronan Rothwell. His dream was to showcase Irish-bred horses and in that way attract new investors to the sport. For the past four years it has been run and organised by a committee made up of Sharon Fitzpatrick, Liz Hughes Brennan and Fiona Deegan.

Each year we see the Irish Breeders’ Classic grow and 2023 will be no exception with an increase in prize money in all the classes. It is a wonderful endorsement that Horse Sport Ireland are supporting the event along with many more national and international sponsors. With record competition entries in 2022 we look forward to an even bigger attendance in 2023.

Cian O’Connor’s Olympic mount Kilkenny and Bertram Allen’s Olympic and five-star Grand Prix winner Pacino Amiro are two graduates of the Irish Breeders’ Classic Final and were both selected to compete at Tokyo Olympics. Over the past 10 years the competition has gained international recognition with other past graduates going on to perform at the highest level of the sport including MHS Going Global, Limestone Grey, Arrabeg Clover (Silver Medallist at Lanaken), Killossery Kaiden (Gold Medallist Lanaken), and Columbcille Gipsy (Gold Medallist Lanaken), BBS McGregor and Dawson’s Gold to name but a few.

The event is supported by Horse Sport Ireland. Speaking about the initiative, HSI CEO Denis Duggan said: “Horse Sport Ireland is delighted to support the Irish Breeders’ Classic as part of our Breeding Grant Scheme with an allocation of €20,000 towards the prize fund.

“This year, over half a million has been awarded to shows across the country from the fund which is part of the National Breeding services programme administered by Horse Sport Ireland on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine. This funding, and other schemes from Horse Sport Ireland form part of over €1 million in prize money for young horse classes in 2023.

“This is a hugely important breeding competition for breeders for the next generation of our world class horses. We wish the organising team, and the competitors the very best of luck as they prepare for the show in the weeks ahead.”

Last year’s winner was Leah Stack with the Noel Cawley-bred Laurina who won the six-year-old championship at Dublin two weeks’ ago and are back to defend their title. “I was delighted to win last year. It was a fantastic show for us in Ballypatrick Stables and we look forward to this year’s show,” Stack commented.

Riding for Greg Broderick’s Ballypatrick Stables, Stack was the sixth winner from the Thurles-based stables last year (see full list to the left) and it marked three in-a-row for Broderick’s competitive yard.

Foal sale

Each year, Goresbridge Sales is an exciting partner to the Irish Breeders’ Classic competition for the Supreme Sale of show jumping foals. From the proceeds of the foal sale 2% of the turnover goes back into the Classic prize fund giving owners the opportunity to purchase a future champion.

Truly select, the initial entrants in this year’s catalogue came under the scrutiny of Brendan Doyle and Alain Storme, who whittled them down to just 14 foals with commercial blacktype pedigrees (see full preview on page 88). Last year’s edition saw 90% of those forward change hands, and the top lot was Patrick Connolly’s CSF Clover Rock, a colt foal by Hardrock Z out of CSF Telly Clover (Ars Vivendi) who made €26,000. With this year’s high class catalogue the organisers will be hoping for more of the same.

See the full schedule for the weekend here.

Past IBC winners

2022: Laurina (Leah Stack)

2021: CBS Khantastic (Kevin Gallagher)

2020: BP Limitless (Kevin Gallagher)

2019: Dawson’s Gold (Ger O’Neill)

2018: BBS McGregor (Jack Ryan)

2017: Columbcille Gipsy (Ger O’Neill)

2016: Ballypatrick Flamenco (Darragh Ryan)

2015: Alberta Mist (Greg Broderick)

2014: Talks Cheap (Alexander Butler)

2013: Arraghbeg Clover (Greg Broderick)