‘SUCCESS has many fathers, failure is an orphan’ – an apt saying which summed up the significant events of the past week for the Irish sport horse industry.

After a two-year gap, the official launch of the Dublin Horse Show 2022 took place at Ballsbridge on Tuesday by Donegal Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue TD (FF).

Hats off to the entire RDS team for overcoming all the post-Covid challenges involved, ticket sales are flying out the door, the stage is now truly set for a magnificient Dublin Horse Show (August 17th-21st).

Dublin Horse Show’s launch was further crowned by the Minister’s crucial announcement that the TAMS war chest is to be further opened for equine-related funding.

Up to now, equine stocks were about the only thing available to the horse sector under TAMS.

In recent years, the need for TAMS funding to be accessible for equine supports has been pushed home on many fronts. The Horsecare Ireland group always kept this issue to the fore, repeatedly highlighting the need for it to be extended to the equine sector, lobbying Horse Sport Ireland and DAFM.

The Mayo Roscommon Breeders lobbied for TAMS while the IFA Horse Project Team ramped up the pressure, recently meeting with Minister for State Martin Heydon (FG) while Horse Sport Ireland, under CEO Denis Duggan, has been proactive with DAFM on unlocking this valuable funding.

Inclusion under TAMS will do much to improve yards nationwide on horse welfare and safety issues, particularly in the sport horse industry, and we very much welcome Minister Charlie McConalogue’s key announcement.

Dublin Horse Show magazine

We are delighted to report that our 124-page 2022 Dublin Horse Show Magazine is now in shops nationwide and is also available to order online at www.theirishfield (please see page 104 for more details).