HSI banking on receiving €1m annually in EU aid

Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) is banking on receiving €1m annually in EU aid to fund discussion groups for sport horse breeders.

The discussion group strategy will be modelled on similar schemes in the dairy, beef, and sheep sectors and will see each horse breeder given a payment of around €750 to attend meetings and complete defined tasks. Some money will be used to pay facilitators to organise the discussion groups.

It comes as €600,000 was allocated to HSI in this week’s budget for the marketing and promotion of the sport horse industry. It is likely to be based on Irish Thoroughbred Marketing, with the possibility the aid could also go to boosting competition prizemoney.