“TOMMY was one of those people who improved everything he touched, people and horses,” said a grateful Jimmy Wofford at the 2015 Dublin Horse Show about the late horseman Tommy Brennan. Dual Olympian Wofford had two extra reasons to be thankful as it was Brennan who originally produced Kilkenny, the horse the American legend was to win silver medals on at Mexico and Munich.

Kilkenny was one of many top-class Irish event horses that have been sold abroad; another Olympic example is Don’t Step Back, bred by P.J Lehane, who was sold to American rider Abigail Lufkin in 2003. Owner Joe Savage had tried to form a syndicate to keep the grey, ridden at the Sydney Olympics by Patricia Ryan, in the country but with no success.

When La Biosthetique Sam FBW came on the market after his double gold medal win at the 2010 World Equestrian Games, it sparked off a frenzy over who could buy him.

Thankfully for Michael Jung, the German equestrian federation stepped in and the horse has indisputably proven himself since as the greatest event horse in modern eventing with a slew of gold medals.

There is nothing like the prospect of Olympic or World Equestrian Games in upping the ante to buy that rarest of unicorns: a four-star event horse. The young American rider Tiana Coudray recounted in her The Irish Field feature how her family was offered “life-changing” amounts for the grey in the lead up to the London Olympics.

The Mr Medicott Syndicate snapped up that horse for Karen O’Connor to ride at London, where she was the highest-placed American rider.

At the same Games, Aoife Clarke and Master Imp recorded the best result by an Irish pair in Olympic eventing, due to the resolute Lily White Syndicate that retained the horse for Ireland.

Mighty Nice and Paulank Brockagh became the latest Irish exports to win Olympic medals at Rio last year for Philip Dutton (USA) and Sam Griffith (AUS). And while the saddlecloth they wear doesn’t affect the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horse points contributed by that horse, the Cooley Rorkes Drift development comes at a crucial time for Irish event horse breeding.

The WBFSH June rankings show the Irish Sport Horse Studbook has slipped to fourth place; the sale of a flagship performer and potential loss of form by a new partnership could further jeopardise this WBFSH benchmark.

We can produce Olympic medal winning horses; the hard part seems to be retaining the ones that could obtain that ‘ideal match’ result of an Irish rider on board.