A WIDE regional spread of venues and dates has been included by Horse Sport Ireland for their new €150,000 HSI Autumn Development Series 2020.

The flagship HSI Autumn Development Series 2020 will provide a prize fund of over €150,000 across the three main equestrian disciplines of show jumping, eventing and dressage and will include breeders’ prizes in each discipline. The series will be run in accordance with existing Government guidelines in relation to Covid-19.

Chairman of Horse Sport Ireland Joe Reynolds said: “Horse Sport Ireland is delighted to announce the dates, venues and classes included in the HSI Autumn Development Series 2020. This series aims to redress the damage to the production calendar caused by Covid-19 earlier in the year. I sincerely hope that the benefit to the industry will be greater than the substantial prize fund of over €150,000, progression of young horses and exposure to potential buyers is uppermost in our minds.

“I am very much looking forward to the exciting new initiative and would like to take this opportunity to wish all those competing the very best of luck.”

Show jumping

The show jumping schedule for the series features 13 dates and venues for classes ranging from Grands Prix to young horse classes. In order to compete in the young horse show jumping final in Cavan (October 30th), horse-rider combinations must have jumped in at least two other young horse show jumping qualifiers.

Chairman of Showjumping Ireland Eamon Rice said: “We are thrilled that Horse Sport Ireland has incorporated the Horse Sport Ireland Autumn Development Series alongside the SJI Autumn Grand Prix, which Showjumping Ireland has ran for the last 10 years. This provides significant extra funding for our riders, owners and producers, we sincerely thank Horse Sport Ireland in this Covid year.” (Visit www.sji.ie for more details).

Eventing

The eventing schedule will feature classes from EI 90 through to EI 110 and will include a combination of eventing, arena eventing and young horse experience classes. These standalone events will not follow a league format and will take place at Knockany, Scarteen, Punchestown, The Meadows, Barnadown and Wexford.

Speaking on behalf of Eventing Ireland, David O’Brien said: “We are delighted to work with the venues that applied to this development series to give our members the opportunity to compete in a young horse competition, additional national eventing competitions and to extend our season later in the year by having two arena competitions. We thank H.S.I.for this substantial initiative providing further support to our producers and breeders, through this development series.”

Dressage

The dressage schedule include qualifiers across Ireland culminating in the final on November 1st at the National Sports Arena at Abbotstown in Dublin. Key venues also include Greenogue, Tipperary and Portmore.

Chair of Dressage Ireland Marguerite McSweeney commented: “On behalf of Dressage Ireland, we would like to thank Horse Sport Ireland for their generous sponsorship of this exciting series, the largest prize fund of its kind in our 31-year history. It gives Irish Dressage owners, breeders, producers and riders the opportunity to showcase their horses and gives them a focus in what has been a very challenging year.”