Our phones started hopping from our people across the grassroots community as the news broke yesterday in The Irish Field that The National Sport Horse Arena at the Sport Ireland Campus will be repurposed as a vegetable garden as part of Sport Ireland Campus Masterplan.

It is safe to say there is a lot of emotion circling around this decision and rightly so. This is sending a message to equestrians especially as Sport Ireland have not answered questions around providing an alternative. This needs to be done and we will be reaching out to them tomorrow with questions.

We asked our CEO Shane McCarthy for a comment on this earlier this morning for his thoughts. “I would like to see Sport Ireland commit to providing an alternative locally if they are going to follow through with their plans to turn the National Horse Sport Arena into a vegetable garden. This sends a message to equestrians the length and breadth of the country. Sport Ireland do a lot of great work. So we need to understand why we haven’t seen a bigger commitment from Sport Ireland to provide a replacement for the National Horse Sport Arena after seeing its success across the last 10+ years”.

We agree, we need a commitment to providing an alternative from Sport Ireland. We wanted to hear from the grassroots community. We wanted to get more view points. So we spoke with equestrians from across The Grassroots Gazette, Equitas and our community to get their thoughts and opinions on this. The emotion is palpable!!

We spoke with Sarah Elebert – Chief Operations Officer and Co-Founder of Equitas. “To have a venue of this standard accessible to riders, professional and Grassroots alike has been a huge asset. The loss of this arena will be massive for equestrians and the affiliates throughout the whole of the industry here in Ireland”.

Sarah continued “We are a country prided on producing top quality horses. Facilities such as the Horse Sport Arena in Abbotstown greatly contribute to this. Times are tough for the Equestrian industry and if we keep losing high class venues such as this, the future of the sport here in Ireland is worrying”.

We need more guidance here from Sport Ireland on what the plan is next. Is there a replacement coming? If so, where and when? Removing the National Horse Sport Arena without an alternative in place and with little communication around this is sending a strong message to the grassroots community and to equestrians across Ireland.

We chatted with Equine Performance & Equitation Coach Shannon Buggy earlier today to get her thoughts. “The potential closure of the National Sports Arena in Dublin, will be a huge loss to the Equestrian Industry. Not only is this facility used for pony club, amateur, and high performance equestrians, it is one of the only performance facilities this end of the country. This will cause a huge impact for many riders and I hope there will be an alternative facility provided for the nature of our sport” – Shannen Buggy.

A huge loss indeed Shannen; an alternative is required and Sport Ireland need to provide a pathway to show equestrians they are not being demoted as a sport. As we write this The Badminton Horse Trials are on. The amount of Irish produced Horses in this world renowned competition shows the profile we have internationally and this is something that needs to be maintained. Pulling the National Horse Sport Arena without an adequate replacement in place could easily be seen as either deliberately sending a message to equestrians across Ireland or shows a lack of planning. Either one is worrying.

Our Head of Community Gary Monahan had a strong message to send “It’s an extremely worrying situation that Sport Ireland feel that removing the National Horse Sport Arena is the right decision without offering up an alternative venue; like many Professional and Grassroots riders who have had the opportunity to use the facilities in the Sport Ireland Campus, I am sure we will all agree that this is a damaging situation for our sport”.

The Irish Equine Industry is appreciated and respected the world over. Across all disciplines but also in producing, breeding and competing. Removing the National Horse Sport Arena without any mention of an alternative or a plan for such, certainly sends a strong message from Sport Ireland and that message to the grassroots community and equestrians across Ireland is not a positive one.