By Kristen
We left Dublin and the classic Central Hotel this morning,
heading southwest out of the city towards Newbridge and Naas. Today’s
activities focused on the equine industry study part of the course work,
including visits at Curragh Racecourse and Horse Sport Ireland.
Curragh covers five thousand acres outside of Newbridge,
shared between the race course/training grounds and public sheep grazing.
Rather than an American track, where the horses are breezed in the early
mornings and timed on the dirt oval, Irish thoroughbreds are worked throughout
the first half of the day all over the training grounds—no horses are stabled
permanently on the grounds, but most of the training farms are within hacking
distance and amazingly the training riders simply ride to the course every day.
Some do ship in from further away, and we saw a variety of shapes of horse vans
and trucks moving in and out of Curragh all morning.
We met Pat Kelly, the training ground manager, and he led
our bus right onto the infield of the race track. Tracks in Ireland are almost
uniformly turf, and not in the typical regular flat oval of American
tracks—instead, the rail can be moved to change the length and shape of the
race from five furlongs to over two miles, and the ground slopes up and down
gently, adding a new dimension of fitness and conditioning for the racehorses.
However, the horses never train on the actual track—with five thousand acres
and additional training tracks, Kelly described how the trainers always sought
to keep the horses’ minds fresh. Coming from a training perspective, I was
thrilled to see this concept in action; our riding horses as well as the racing
Thoroughbred are in constant need of something new to think about before they
“lose it” and much of my job as a trainer is finding new ways to put the horses
in work to keep them mentally ready to be teachers. (Too bad no one can take me out for something new to do so I stay mentally ready to be a teacher. Guess that's why I'm in Ireland and not pegging away back in the arena right now.)
From our vantage point at the top of a slope, we could look
down the length of the one-mile training straightaway and watch horses breezing
in pairs or trios up the wood-chip track or synthetic surface. Trainers came
and went to watch their horses work; one well-known trainer had twenty or so
horses cantering by in one long line which was thrilling to see, the exercise
riders calling and laughing to each other as they gradually pulled up along the
rail. As our director Nancy said with a smile, “this would be a great place to
be a horse.”
After lunch and a free hour which we spent simply enjoying
some sunshine on the bank of a pond in the residential part of Naas, we headed
to Horse Sport Ireland, the relatively-newly-formed governing body of
equestrian sport in the country. Separate from the racing part of the equine
industry, HSI helps to shape the sport horse industry from promoting Irish
sport horses and ponies to foreign competitive markets to providing broodmare
and stud inspections to regulating national-caliber competition. We listened to
an overview presentation from director of finance Mark Bolger and then
discussed a variety of topics with him, from the slow growth of reining as a
discipline in Ireland to breed standards among the Irish sport horse to the
perception of Ireland as a horse country abroad. As an equine professional, I
enjoyed this session with Mr. Bolger, learning about how a different equestrian
governing body operates as well as to compare successes and problems. He seemed
to be as interested in our stories as we were in his, and I hope that our
conversation was mutually beneficial.
County Kildare is aptly called the horse racing capitol of
Ireland but with the presence of Horse Sport Ireland in Naas as well all
aspects of the horse in competition are recognized here. It’s easy to tell that
the Irish truly love their horses.
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