TEAM IRELAND EQUESTRIAN now has its own section within the HSI website. Here you will find biographies, show dates, and eventually a video and image resource.
All Irish equestrian teams will now be competing under the new logo, ‘Team Ireland Equestrian’. Connect with the new microsite HERE

THE ANNUAL exodus of Irish riders and horses to sunnier climes begins this weekend when the first contingent arrives in Portugal for the two-star show at Comporta tomorrow (Thursday). A total of nine riders with 43 horses - many of them Irish-bred - will take part in the two-star Portuguese event.

OFFALY-born Darragh Kenny failed in his bid for a World Cup hat-trick when finishing third in the World Cup Qualifier at Wellington in Florida last night (Saturday), but the points gained now put him at the top of the US East Coast League, and secure his ticket to this year's Rolex World Cup Finals at Geneva in April.

A PHOTO call was held at Horse Sport Ireland in Naas on Friday 12th February to launch the HSI Chippison Spring Tour 2010. Previously known as the ‘HSI Guidam Spring Tour’, 2010 sees new sponsors John and Marie Burke coming on board with Horse Sport Ireland and the Showjumpers Club. Thoroughbred Remedies, Darragh Equestrian Solutions, Comfort Zone, Jaguar Saddles and Showjumping Ireland will support the Tour.

SPAIN will see Tipperary's Denis Lynch try to gain World Cup points this weekend, when he lines out at Vigo's five-star show from Friday. The 33 year-old Irish rider competes at the Cotogrande Fair Grounds in the historic city venue on the north Atlantic coast with Flaminia Straumann's gelding 'Nabab's Son' and her father Thomas's 'All Inclusive NRW'.

Brendan McArdle reports from the Grand Prix at Abu Dhabi. The audio file can be downloaded here.

THE final fences cost Ireland dear in today's (Saturday) 300,000 euro Grand Prix at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, with both Cork's Billy Twomey and Mayo's Cameron Hanley collecting faults at the last obstacles in the jump-off. Twomey and Sue Davies's bay stallion 'J'Taime Flamenco' were first to go in the 11-horse final round but picked up four faults at the last fence to finish in eighth place overall.

THE Irish show jumping team today (Friday) finished seventh of 11 teams taking part in the Abu Dhabi Nations' Cup in the United Arab Emirates, and will donate their prize money of 4,000 euro to GOAL for the Haiti Earthquake relief fund. A clear from Billy Twomey and 'Je t'Aime Flamenco' in the first round left Ireland with eight faults in total after fences down from team-mates Dermott Lennon, Cameron Hanley and Cian O'Connor, and this put them in the top six teams who went through to Round Two.

DENIS Lynch took fourth place tonight (Friday) in the first major competition of Bordeaux's five-star World Cup weekend. The 33 year-old Tipperary rider, piloting Flaminia Straumann's bay gelding 'All Inclusive NRW', was one of eleven combinations through to the Prix Generali jump-off from a starting field of 37.