After Sunday’s clinching of an Olympic place in show jumping in Barcelona, Irish equestrian sport has moved to a place it’s never been before. The country will have eventing, dressage, and show jumping teams at next year’s Olympics - the first time ever that the sport in this country has been able to say that.

The final hour is at hand for Ireland’s show jumpers to deliver their country out of the Olympic wilderness. Not since Athens 2004 has Ireland qualified a show jumping team for the Games, and tomorrow sees the Irish riders embark on their last chance to make Tokyo 2020.

Just two days after breaking her own Irish Grand Prix record score to help Ireland qualify a dressage team for the next Olympic games, Judy Reynolds smashed her Irish Grand Prix Special record to advance to the Freestyle final at the European Championships in Rotterdam yesterday evening.

Five days from today Ireland’s dressage team will commence their bid for honours and a possible Tokyo 2020 place when the European Championships get under way in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The Championships feature Dressage, Show Jumping and Para-Dressage, and it will be the dressage competition that gets the whole affair underway on Monday.

Ireland have been drawn fourth to jump in tomorrow's Longines FEI Nations Cup of Ireland for the Aga Khan Trophy at the 2019 Stena Line Dublin Horse Show.

Paul O’Shea blitzed home on Imerald van’t Voorhof to claim the Sport Ireland Classic on the opening day of Dublin Horse Show yesterday.

Ireland’s show jumping team manager Rodrigo Pessoa is set for his third attempt to win the Aga Khan trophy at the Stena Line Dublin Horse Show which gets underway at the Royal Dublin Society today.

The Irish show jumping team will be vying with nine other nations for an Olympic place when they head to the European Championships in Rotterdam next month.

Meath’s Cian O’Connor has recorded Ireland’s second win of the week at the World Equestrian Festival in Germany.

This week Portugal hosts a round of the Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT) as the action moves to the coastal venue of Estoril. Irish riders Bertram Allen, Michael Duffy, Denis Lynch, Darragh Kenny, and Mark McAuley will all be in the hunt for individual purses as well as appearances for their respective Global Champions League (GCL) teams.

This weekend Ireland’s show jumping team face their second of four Nations Cup qualifiers when they travel to the Baltic venue of Sopot for the Nations Cup of Poland.

Ireland grabs its share of international attention this week with Tattersalls International Horse Trials getting underway in Co. Meath today and Mullingar hosting its two-star international show jumping meeting over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Ireland’s show jumping team manager Rodrigo Pessoa brings a five-member squad to Rome for this week’s Italian Nations Cup, but will not face the same pressure he experienced last week in France.

Irish showjumper Darragh Kenny has claimed a place on the podium at today’s €200,000 five-star Longines Grand Prix at La Baule in France.

Friday sees the first of Ireland’s competitive show jumping team fixtures this year as manager Rodrigo Pessoa brings a strong squad to La Baule for the French Nations Cup.

Shane Breen will be hoping for a repeat of his form a fortnight ago when lining out in Shanghai this week for the latest round of the Global Champions League.

Cian O’Connor takes his relatively recent acquisition Irenice Horta to this week’s four-star Horses and Dreams fixture at Hagen in Germany.

All eyes are on Gorthenburg this week as the Swedish city hosts the annual FEI World Cup Finals in both show jumping and dressage.

This weekend should see Ireland’s Judy Reynolds secure a place at the 2018/2019 FEI Dressage World Cup final, which takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden in April.

Qatar stays in focus this week with a second successive five-star fixture in Doha following on from last weekend’s opening round of the Global Champions Tour.

Bertram Allen returns to the scene of a memorable victory this weekend as he lines out in Bordeaux at the final showjumping qualifier in the European division of the 2018/2019 FEI World Cup series.

The year is getting off to a familiar start for Irish riders based in the US as the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) commences in Wellington, Florida today and continues for three months.

After a two-week break, the FEI World Cup series resumes this weekend with both dressage and show jumping rounds taking place in Stuttgart in Germany.

Ireland’s Bertram Allen makes his first FEI World Cup appearance of the 2018/2019 season in what is the third round of the series in Verona, Italy this weekend.

The Irish eventing team kept their nerve to hold onto the silver medal on the final day of the eventing competition at the World Equestrian Games in North Carolina yesterday where Pádraig McCarthy added to the Irish haul by claiming silver in the individual competition.

The opening ceremony for the World Equestrian Games (WEG) took place last night in Tryon, North Carolina and the first of thirteen days of action gets underway today. Endurance, Reining and Dressage are the disciplines kicking things off and Ireland is represented in all three.

Rodrigo Pessoa must have been inspired when picking the Irish riders for today’s Aga Khan nations cup competition as they claimed the top three places in yesterday’s Stablelab Stakes at the Stena Line Dublin Horse and almost nabbed the fourth spot as well.

The annual German equestrian festival at Aachen takes centre stage this week with Ireland contesting the showjumping nations cup and dressage rider Judy Reynolds making a long-awaited return to action with her Olympic horse Vancouver K.

Last Sunday’s nations cup in Rotterdam did not involve the Irish team but the result will have a bearing on the country’s league standing up to and including the Aga Khan contest at Dublin Horse Show which is now just over six weeks away.

Jonty Evans remains in intensive care in Beaumont Hospital after a fall at Tattersalls International Horse Trials on Sunday.

Next Sunday in the French Nations Cup at La Baule, the Irish team will wear black armbands as a mark of respect to legendary show jumper Tommy Wade who exited the arena of life in his 80th year on Monday.

“All in all everyone is happy and it’s onwards and upwards from here,” said Irish rider Shane Breen after Sunday’s nations cup league opener in Samorin, Slovakia.

Young Galway rider Michael Duffy could hardly have hoped for a better debut in the Global Champions League when he represented the mostly-Irish Miami Celtics team, riding Efs Top Contender in the opening round of the season in Mexico City at the weekend.

There were some positive moves for Irish riders in the latest Longines rankings issued by the world governing body, the FEI, yesterday.

Ireland’s show jumpers could be in line for a notable treble as they tackle the Wellington Nations Cup this weekend during week eight of the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida.

Ireland has two show jumping teams in action this weekend for the first of this year’s nations cup fixtures. Michael Blake takes charge of affairs for the five-star meeting in Ocala, Florida, while Taylor Vard will be overseeing matters at Abu Dhabi’s five-star contest in the UAE.

The recent cold snap afflicting the US has lifted just in time for the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) which begins today at Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, Florida. 

Last weekend’s RTÉ Team Of The Year accolade for Ireland’s show jumpers may have crowned a memorable 2017 for equestrian sport in this country, but we’re not quite done for the year yet.

Horse sports received plenty of recognition at the RTÉ Sports Awards on Saturday night, but it was James McClean who collected the top award.

Now that the Global Champions Tour has concluded for another year, the FEI World Cup series provides the main international show jumping focus in the months ahead.

The Manhattan skyline provides the backdrop to this week’s showpiece event on the North American circuit as the fourth staging of the the Rolex Central Park Horse Show gets underway at the Wollman Rink today.

The latest Longines FEI world rankings saw Irish riders on the move following the European Show Jumping Championship success last month.

Next year’s World Equestrian Games (WEG) have taken on a new perspective for Ireland’s show jumpers following their recent European Championships victory in Gothenburg, Sweden, team member Cian O’Connor said yesterday.