10% increase in entries for Dublin Horse Show

The RDS has attributed a 10.6% increase in entries for next week’s Discover Ireland Dublin Horse Show to greater interest in production of Ireland’s indigenous breeds.

Extra entries are mainly in the new performance classes for traditional Irish breeds, and a spill-over into the ridden and led hunter classes.

Organisers believe they have attracted greater entries by focusing on what the horse can actually do.

As a result, the performance Irish draught class has had to be divided, with separate classes for six-year-olds and over, and four- and five-year-olds.

There are 17 entered for the Irish draught stallion class, and 12 in thoroughbred stallions.

There were increased entries at the qualifier stage of the Connemara Performance Hunter Championship. The new maxi cob (over 15.1hh) class has attracted a strong field of entries.